


Tooth and Tail: Blessed Blood

by CaptainExtremis



Category: Tooth and Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Comedy, Cannibalism, CaptainEx headcanons the shit out of everybody, Fictional language, Gen, Grimdark, I apologize in advance, Illustrated, War Stories, also mock German, kinda sorta I guess, significant divergence from game mechanics, slight intrigue, the animal soldiers are built more like humans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-30 15:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 29,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12111480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainExtremis/pseuds/CaptainExtremis
Summary: The Blight had killed everything. At least, everything that mattered. When the crops failed, the serfs panicked and fled to Levacaloo, hoping they could find safety and solace with their kin. They would find no such thing; in the end, many volunteered their lives and flesh to keep society alive.As it remained for generations. However, over the years, the Civilized chose of their numbers less and less, and of the commoners more and more. Soon, it became apparent that a revolution would flare to life and boil over. All it took was dwindling crops and Swine, and the final nail in the coffin was the Harvest of Arroyo Bellafide's son.Now the Commonfolk vagrants and the aristocratic Longcoats have struck an alliance, led by Hopper and Arroyo Bellafide, respectively. Now the KSR and the Civilized stand against them to keep the status quo, headed by the shady Quartermaster and the High Missionary Archimedes.But in the shadows, something lurks, unseen and uncaring. For now, they watch. But when they strike, their might will fall from heaven like a righteous hammer.





	1. The Road to Hell, Part 1

 

_ 34 H, Vyensh yem Yawktawpel _

 

Under thundering skies, the rain poured down on the cold stone of the pathways cutting in between the chapels and apartments of Levacaloo. The water washed down the stone spires, as cold and uncaring as those who feasted and left the rest to starve. But soon, that mindset would be no more. Bellafide would make _sure_ of it.

Although he hated getting his coat wet or otherwise dirty, he hated the clergy more, and couldn’t wait to see their terrified faces as he stormed into their sacred chapels when they had gorged themselves, and were too fat to run away. His scowl became more set into his brow. _And then we feast on_ **_them._ **

“Heyyy, uh...boss…?”

Arroyo shot a glance to his right. A ferret marched alongside him, toting his mobile artillery launcher on his back. He pursed his lips and continued, “...You okay…? You look more... _angry_...than usual.”

Arroyo brought his gaze forward. “No, no, Ardin. Not angry. Just...determined,” he replied. No one else would talk to him; there was nothing to discuss. The Longcoats had entrenched themselves in The Bonepits using the piles of bones left behind by the many feasts as barriers, hidden traps, and even their own warrens. Arroyo knew that after this, there was no returning from the path he set himself and his army down. But he felt no regret, or even uncertainty. He was doing this for Junior. He might not have been able to give his son a proper funeral, but he could certainly give him a proper sendoff.

The army strode up more of the dozens of stone stairways until they found a flatter stretch of land, covered in bullet hives. Above, Arroyo could see the silhouettes of the falcons circling overhead. He stopped and retreated a few steps, just to be sure he and his men weren’t in their range of vision. Arroyo, the Freight Union, the Distillery Brothers, and his own Wing Demons.

He looked around. His troops were crouching down on the steps, some huddled together, some looking up into the sky. A few of the squirrels were taking extra shots from their bottles of orn. Arroyo huffed and motioned for everyone to get as close as possible. “Whatcha need, boss? Whatcha want us to do?” one of the Brothers asked.

“All of you boys,” he said, pointing to the squirrels, “stay back. The Freight Union will fire on the Civilized bullet hives . You stay behind them and harass the Wing Demons.”

“Thought that was _our_ job, sir,” said one of the falcons, landing on the ground a few feet to Arroyo’s right.

“It is,” he replied, “We need to get into the feasting halls as fast as lightning while taking as few casualties as possible. Once that happens…” Arroyo trailed off.

Another ferret grinned. “Once that happens, we **eat,”** he cried.

This remark was met with wild cheering, and Arroyo knew that if the Wing Demons didn’t hear it first, his army would get too impatient and charge without him. So with that in mind, Arroyo stood himself up and with steely will, marched forward. His troops followed him happily, and a few of the more inebriated squirrels started firing their revolvers at the opposing falcons while they were still dozens of feet away. And once they had the Civilized’s attention, they _kept_ it.

“It’s the traitor! Don’t let them through! All fighters, _fire at will!”_ One of the falcons issued their orders, and soon, the rain stopped falling on the ground, because it was all being blocked by hundreds of falcons, flying right at the Longcoat army that stood in defiance of them and all they stood for.

Many of the Wing Demons dipped low and the machine guns started firing as they began conducting hit and run tactics. It was successful, at the start, as they killed off a majority of the squirrels who were too drunk to know what was happening, as well as killing a few more ferrets. However, once Arroyo’s Wing Demons came in, the Civilized soldiers were too busy dealing with them to focus fire on the ground forces.

Arroyo looked up at the dogfight, and the few bodies that were falling every so often. He had to slap a few wrists to keep his soldiers from dragging the carcass away immediately and getting distracted of course, but otherwise, he marched forward with the Freight Union and the remaining Distillery Brothers at his side. He outpaced his army and the first line of machine guns began firing at him, but the ferrets all started launching dozens of volleys at the encampments, and one by one, the bullet hives crumbled.

The Longcoats marched forward, through ever thicker machine gun fire. Those who hadn’t died from being riddled with bullets were, at the very least, bleeding profusely from seven or more puncture wounds; not even Arroyo was exempt from this rule.

He clutched at his arm, shot in three places just below the shoulder. He and his soldiers had pushed through most of the lines of machine guns, but he could see, coming over the hill, that their battle wasn’t done yet. The Morning Light Croakers hopped fervently over the hills, croaking a litany of prayers and curses on Arroyo’s name. He looked down at his shoulder and grunted, “I’ve been hit harder,” before running ahead.

“Forward…!”

Bellafide’s rallying cry called his troops of squirrel pistoliers and ferret artillery back to his side, instilling the resolve that only the leader of the Longcoats could give. In a wave of shouting, they surged forward through the unrelenting hail of bullets, a glint of hunger in each and every one of their eyes. The Longcoats met the Civilized forces and while the initial clash allowed some of the toads to blow themselves up safely, most after that were no more than bloody paste on the ground before the fuse could even hit powder.

* * *

Archimedes stood on the steps of one of the ancient buildings that surrounded the Monastic Gardens, gazing out solemnly at the darkened sky, lit periodically by the dull orange of muzzle flashes and black-powder explosions in the distance. He sighed deeply.

He had warned them, all of them. The lower clergy had simply waved him off and continued feasting. Archimedes snorted, wiped his brow, and marched down the steps with the few pigeons, skunks, and toads he could muster. “Follow,” he commanded in his aging, raspy voice.

“Great Missionary,” a toad by his side croaked as he hopped in stride with Archimedes, “you haven’t told us your plan to drive the traitors out.”

Archimedes sighed as he kept marching. “Ah, my child...my plan was not to drive the Longcoats away in the first place,” he explained. “We are simply going to try and kill as many of them as possible, so that we may still feast in the desert.”

“Wffr mmgkin uffghtn rtruht?” a skunk mumbled.

“Take your mask off, my son, no one can understand what’s coming out of your mouth.”

The AFB soldier promptly lifted his mask up and restated his question. “We’re making a fighting retreat?”

Archimedes turned his head and deadpanned. “Not a retreat. A _debilitating skirmish.”_ They marched forward along the stone paths until they came to an area on the main roads that still needed some defenses. Archimedes immediately set about planting Tremormines at the foremost chokepoints, two narrow pathways between the piles of bones.

He returned to his followers, still standing at attention and alert. All that was left to do was wait, and the Longcoats made sure they didn’t wait long. They heard the numerous boots hitting the pavement before they even saw any blue peek the sightlines, but once they so much as saw the bushy tail of one of the Distillery Brothers, Archimedes cried out, “Strike!”

Dozens of skunks began launching gas directly on top of them, and Archimedes instructed his troops to move forward and fire back. They did so, lobbing gas volleys over and over. As to be expected from the traitors, they pushed forward and into Archimedes’ territory, and were hit with both the explosions of four Tremormines, two on each chokepoint, and multiple suicide runs from the Morning Light Croakers. Their sacrifices yielded large chunks of meat that the pigeons and skunks would try to drag away as quickly as they could while still firing their weapons; some of them died that way.

Archimedes had little, if any, time to strategize. He had to focus on killing as many of the Longcoats as possible. In theory, it would be simple, considering Arroyo had so many troops on his bankroll. However, that was also the problem, as hundreds more ferrets and squirrels came streaming into the narrow entrance to the Civilized section of the Bonepits, supported by hit-and-runs by dozens of falcons left over from the initial attack. They swooped in from the darkened skies, firing their guns as brazenly as possible, bullets riddling the ground just as much as their targets.

The toads continued throwing themselves at the Longcoats’ front lines, detonating and sending dozens of conscripted soldiers to black-powder graves while The AFB troops shot gas bombs into the chokepoints. The Longcoats marched through, and some ended up choking to death.

This didn’t stop the tide, however. The Longcoats simply kept coming, and it became obvious to Archimedes that he would have to retreat sooner, rather than later. “Hold!” he called as he marched out. He directed the toads to stand in position at the forefront, allowing them to run a shorter distance before detonating themselves, and built several backup warrens to allow The AFB and the Volunteers to resupply as needed. Under the constant hail of gunfire, it was a difficult task, but it was done. Archimedes stood outside the last warren he could make as the Operators swiftly built it up from the ground. “Excellent,” he muttered to himself, “This will buy me time…”

“Great Missionary!” Archimedes brought his head up and nearly jumped out of his skin. A pigeon fluttered down and perched on the warren, which was being reinforced at this point. “The Longcoats just...just keep pouring in! What are your orders?”

He was silent for a moment, but spoke with whatever wisdom he could muster in a pitched battle. “Child, you must hold as long as you can. Pass these words along to the rest of the Civilized forces,” he articulated.

As he turned around to plan a fast escape route, the pigeon asked again, “What about you, Great Missionary? What will you be doing?”

“Ah…” He paused, then quickly explained, “I will venture out to see if there are any other Civilized who yet live, and I will return to reinforce our numbers.” The pigeon nodded intensely and then flew back to the front lines with a retreating call of “Come back quickly, sir!”

Archimedes watched her go and sighed in relief. Then, he ran. He ran in the opposite direction as fast as he could. After all, a few hundred soldiers could be replaced easily; loyalty was relatively cheap these days, going for three meals a day and a roof over one’s head. His own life, however, was the only thing keeping the Civilized together. Him, and Sage Marro. He tore through The Bonepits, the thunder of distant gunfire still ringing out across the city. Archimedes was only thankful that the Longcoats hadn’t pushed further in, as getting into the countryside would be easy, even without the use of the Warrens. He just had to run a bit further…

He rounded a corner, and saw only a pole swing out to meet him. Archimedes felt it hit him in the face before it actually landed, and he was sent backward, and sprawled out on the ground. There was no time to even come to grips with the pain, as Bellafide himself, who had been waiting for the Great Missionary to show his crooked face, proceeded to roar with a fury long-repressed, and swung his own flag again in an overhead strike, determined to break Archimedes’ skull open. Archimedes countered as fast as he could, holding up his own flag to block the blow.

Arroyo was so dead set on choking the life out of Archimedes that he didn’t expect the old coot to kick him in the stomach, sending him stumbling back when the wind got knocked out of him. It allowed Archimedes to struggle to his feet, coughing and trying to numb the throbbing pain in his temples by sheer force of will as he jogged away as fast as he could.

Naturally, when Arroyo saw that, he wasn’t having any of it. “You’ll pay for what you did to my son, you hypocrite!” he yelled after Archimedes. He charged forward, still screaming, but his hatred blinded him to the fact that Archimedes might not be done. Despite the beatdown, Archimedes turned around and used that momentum to swing his banner in a wide arc. It smashed into Bellafide, sending him careening to his left and smashing into a pile of bones. They came down like an avalanche.

Arroyo was far from dead, or even out cold, but his vision was blurry, the world was spinning, and he could feel his nose bleeding. All he knew for certain was that Archimedes, from where he was standing was smiling. It wasn’t the smile of a kind minister either; it was the condescending smile that the Civilized wore whenever a new course was chosen for the Harvest. “I have seen what you have become,” he said, “and it is _delicious._ I can’t wait to savor it one day.”

Before Arroyo could stammer out a counter, Archimedes had run off. He couldn’t say he was surprised; the Civilized might have a garrison under their jurisdiction, but the clergy would never fight for themselves. He eventually regained the strength to stand up, brush his coat off, and look back into the horizon, filled with smoke and dimming fires rising up over the piles of bones. He grinned mirthlessly.

They **had** a garrison, at least.

* * *

As he stared back at the chaos unfolding behind him, he felt nothing inside but a burning determination to end the war before it could even gain momentum. He pivoted and marched out of Levacaloo, leaving the Longcoats to feast on what remained of his army. He knew, however, they wouldn’t set foot in the Gardens yet. The rest of the clergy would keep them full long enough for him to regrow his follower count.


	2. The Road to Hell, Part 2

 The first thing the chameleon saw that morning was the Quartermaster herself walking right up to his cell, bending a whip in her gloved fists. He’d been caught on the border of The Ends and the Snikaree Foothills, and instead of killing him, apparently the Quartermaster had ordered for as many rebels as possible to be caught and interrogated. He scoffed quietly to himself and looked away. “Sorry, ma’am. That’s not one of my turn-ons.”

The Quartermaster only hardened her stare and snapped the disciplinary whip through the air. The resulting _*crack!*_ bounced off the walls of the stone and mortar of the holding cells. “You know I’m not here to play games, trencher,” she said. Her voice was melodic, but she had long since learned how to use it to freeze a man in place. “So let me try thees _one_ more time... _where_ ees Hopper?”

“You know where she is,” he replied. “Why you askin’ me somethin’ you already know?”

“Because…” she seethed, “The Skirts stretch on for miles. The KSR has expended hundreds of munitions, soldiers, and food to raid _two_ outposts already.”

The chameleon laughed. “Those Commonfolk...they don’t go down easy, do they?”

The Quartermaster growled in a low voice and nearly bent her whip to a breaking point. She quickly snapped back up straight and took a deep breath, massaging her forehead. This was the fourth day in a row that she hadn’t been able to glean anything from interrogating the Trench Gang, and she couldn’t buy their loyalty; they feared betraying The Family too much. All was not completely lost, however. She turned and left the chameleon to suffer in silence, and went two cells over.

This jail cell was even smaller than the previous one, and held a single mole sitting in the corner, arms crossed and scowling. He’d been captured two days before, and upon finding him making dents in the wall with his hammer, it was forcibly removed from his hands and used as tinder for the ovens. He had been pouting ever since, and didn’t seem to care that the Quartermaster was approaching him. “Mole,” she began, “I need to talk to you.”

“Engineer not talking,” he spat back.

“You vould know the best place that Hopper Silvya would be hiding in The Skirts. Talk.”

The mole stared back up at the Quartermaster uncaringly. “KSR cannot make Engineer talk.”

“I can break you in more ways than you know how to die, commoner scum,” she hissed back. “I vill only give you this mercy one last time. Talk, or you’ll _scream_ your answers after I’m done vith you.”

The Engineer only tightened his arms and clenched his fists. The Quartermaster breathed in and pursed her lips. “So be it.” She pivoted and made for the hallway to get another pair of hands to drag the prisoner to The Tenderizer, but stopped to let a ferret pass, holding a plate of grain and drutcele. She would have kept walking, if not for the fact she could clearly hear the conversation being held in the cell.

“Heyyy, you better eat, peasant.”

The mole, she assumed, made an exaggerated retching sound. “Engineer would sooner die than eat beast food!” A plate fell and shattered on the ground.

This made the Quartermaster freeze mid-stride and quickly double back to the cell. She turned the corner, which frightened the ferret as soon as she showed her face. _“Ach…!_ Misses Quartermaster, ma’am!” he exclaimed. “I...I didn’t drop nothing, it was the rabble over here, he-he knocked it outta my hand when I gave-”

Normally, should _would_ have struck him across the face with her whip, but she paid him no mind. Instead, the Quartermaster threw him aside and picked up the remnants of the plate and the vegetables. “And Engineer will _never_ let KSR force-feed him beast food either!” he shouted, shooting to his feet. “Engineer would sooner _choke_ on his own hammer than-”

“What are you villing to give up to never eat this again?” the Quartermaster cut in. The mole’s expression shifted almost immediately from seething hatred to dumbfounded confusion.

“...Engineer thinks that is stupid question. Why would KSR be asking stupid question...?” he replied.

The Quartermaster retained her uninterested expression and tossed the cracked porcelain and food over her shoulder, which the ferret hurriedly picked up. He paused for a moment, considering how hungry he was, then slowly brought a handful of the grain up to his mouth, keeping his eyes on the Quartermaster.

“You so much as put your _tongue_ on any of that, I vill cut it off and store it in The Larder,” she scolded. The ferret immediately stopped and left the cell’s area, repeating, “Yes, ma’am, right away ma’am” as he ran away.

She turned her attention back to the mole. “I ask this question because I have a proposal for you,” she stated, standing at attention.

“Engineer thought KSR was going to make him cry for his mommy-”

**“Shut up!”** the Quartermaster barked, causing the mole to flinch. “Perhaps…” she began again, “You’d be villing to disclose Hopper’s location for some meat, then...?”

The Engineer scoffed. “Engineer will never tell where Hopper is, even for meat! Engineer does not like beast food, but he likes KSR even less.”

“Ve can promise you three meals a day and a roof over your head,” she commented. The Engineer looked at her but kept his arms crossed and his scowl fixed on his face. “Ve mostly use Svine, but you’re allowed to eat who you keel after battle, so long as they aren’t KSR forces.”

“Usually Hopper stays in train station Two Hundred Two. If Hopper is not there, look in northeastern Skirts,” the Engineer explained.

The Quartermaster smiled and quickly unlocked his cell, and escorted him out. She walked him around the corner to one of the AFB guards and instructed, “Soldier, get thees one a new uniform.”

The skunk saluted and mumbled something, most likely an affirmation than anything else. “And if he tries stealing any food, keel him!” she added as she turned around and pointed at the mole. Helpful or no, this Engineer belonged to The KSR now, and if he disobeyed, he’d suffer by their laws.

Thank the Tsarina loyalty came cheap these days.

* * *

The Skirts took a hard mindset and an even harder gullet to survive. Luckily, both it and the Commonfolk banner attracted a lot of such animals who were sick and tired of Civilized oppression. Even Hopper was surprised to find out that just by shouting “We’re gonna chuck the Civilized into their own fryin’ pans!” from the rooftops got her a substantial army ready to butcher on her behalf. Of course, that meant food had to flow to the new troops, and meat was hard to come by in The Skirts even _before_ the Revolution.

But she made it work, somehow. Through either iron will and determination or sheer luck, Hopper had been able to lead an army of what would otherwise be common rabble. From her shack built to overlook the majority of Station Two-Oh-Two, she could see the whole town, and the tunnels that led both north and south. They’d been blocked off for nearly a year now. Before the Revolution, they only carried animals to Harvest in Levacaloo. Now, it was all just KSR prison trains.

Hopper glanced back at the map of the countryside. Taking strategic positions in The Ends itself was far too taxing, even for the Commonfolk themselves. But she knew that taking advantage of certain areas and blockading them early, or at least before The KSR got to them, was imperative to winning the war in the long-term.

As she leaned over the table, she heard one of the floorboards of her house creak. It didn’t sound natural, but she was certain she was the only one here. She sighed. “Means only one thing…” she muttered to herself, turning around. “Yer not bein’ clever no mo’.”

A chameleon uncloaked himself, and leaned on his spiked club. His eyes twitched, but he smirked. “Didn’t think mice could smell that good.”

Hopper chuckled and pointed to her ears. “Not smellin’...Hearin’. Anyway, wha’cha want?”

The chameleon chuckled too, and paused to think of how to word his message. “So, you know how the Revolution’s taken every walk’a life by storm?” he asked, twiddling his thumbs.

“Do I know…?” Hopper repeated indignantly. “Even before dis Revolution got off da ground, I knew it’d shake dis country up!”

“Yeah, well,” he continued, “Apparently, those aristocrats in the south wanna get in on it.”

Hopper did a double-take and her eyes widened. “W...What? Really...?” She froze, and the neutral expression on the chameleon meant he wasn’t joking. She paused to consider her options. Suddenly, digging into the sands of The Ends didn’t seem so monumental. “...Neva thought the high-brows would want a part’a dis war,” she said.

“Yeah, well...I’ve just been hearin’ rumors, but apparently, Arroyo...you know, the king of the ring? That Arroyo...Well the Civilized, they, erm...took a _significant interest_ in his son, if you catch my drift,” he explained.

Hopper went quiet. The fact that not even the rich were exempt from Harvest was, in all honesty, news to her. “Guess we gotta go talk to ‘im,” she said at length. “Best an’ fastest way’t win, if ya ask me.”

The chameleon waved his hand dismissively and muttered, “You’re the leader here, Nubs,” before disappearing from sight. Hopper returned to her map and planning. A general, she wasn’t, but she prided herself on at least knowing what to attack and when.

First order of business, therefore, was to push out into The Ends and take either Solawa or Old Mother Township. She pursed her lips. Solawa was a big city, but if the Commonfolk could push out the defending Civilized, it could become a secondary stronghold. On the other hand, Old Mother Township could be easily defended, but it was further up north, closer to the Hagro Highlands; if The KSR wanted, they could easily crush it. Both locations were risky gambles.

Hopper eyed both locations on the map. In time, she took out a pen and started drawing lines, connecting routes, and planning an assault. When she finished, the map showed the ideal situation:

Solawa would fall...and the Commonfolk would feast.


	3. Red Sky at Morning

Arroyo stood in silent vigil. His office was mostly dark, save for the setting sun, very dimly lighting up the room through the northern window. The hardwood floors were always kept waxed, and his desk was always kept tidy, as free of papers as possible. The only thing that was a mess, was a small area in the corner. It was unremarkable, save for the fact that it had a smaller table placed in the corner. Two stacks of paper sat on it, collecting dust; and several dozen toys encircled it. They ranged from stuffed toys to carved wooden trains.

There was a picture hanging on the western wall, on the right of the arrangement of toys and the table. Arroyo remembered when Junior asked him if he could have his own office, too, in the corner. He remembered laughing. He thought it an odd request at the time, but Junior had his wish. Arroyo taught him how to output simple papers, mainly counting assets and revenue so he could do the hard work. “Start them young,” was his policy, after all. A year before Harvest, Arroyo had requested a painting of Junior. It set him back a few thousand bones, but he was so well-behaved. In this painting, he looked proud, yet innocent. He wore a coat Arroyo had worn during his younger years, and it matched his blue eyes. In this timeless state, his son was still alive. His son was immortal.

He sighed, trying to keep himself from shedding any more tears. He was able to do so much easier when he heard someone knock on his office door. Arroyo looked over at it, still somewhat detached from reality, but walked over and swung the door open. His cook, the prestigious Uncle Butter was standing behind it, still cleaning a stein with a rag. “Oh, sorry Bellafide...Were you busy…?”

“Yes, I…” Arroyo sighed deeply and massaged his forehead. “I’m done now. What do you need, my friend?”

“Those scouts you sent out to secure The Docks earlier?” Butter said. “They haven’t come back yet. I think we should look into it, if not send out a few soldiers after them.”

Arroyo grimaced and groaned. “It must be The KSR,” he muttered dejectedly. “They really enjoy sticking their noses in everyone’s business.” He walked out of the office and down the hall, but eventually let Uncle Butter walk ahead. “You go tell the Freight Unioneers I’ll need seventy of their number, twenty Engineers, and at least ninety of the Distillery Brothers need to stop drinking enough to walk in a straight line for two hours. I’ve got to plan our attack, if we need one.”

“Will do, Arroyo,” Butter said as he walked down the stairs and went back to the tavern proper, still raucous and full of life. Bellafide stayed and watched him go, then went back to his office and lit one of the lamps. He took out several maps from a drawer in a cabinet behind his desk and rifled through them for a few minutes before he found a detailed layout of The Docks. They bordered the south sea, which allowed orn and ale to be shipped out and around to the east and west to get to other cities. Expensive, yes, but it was faster than sending shipments through The Ends. At the end of the day, it was worth the investment.

Either way, the plan practically unfolded itself: The Longcoats entered from the north using the Warrens, and if a significant KSR presence was found, they would split up and surround them in a pincer move. They couldn’t retreat into the sea, and if they ran north, the Longcoats would follow them until either The KSR forces gave up and stopped running to fight, or until they reached The Ends. Arroyo looked over his plan, nodded, and then walked over to the far wall and picked up the crest of the Longcoats. “War won’t win itself,” he said to himself.

* * *

 The travel through the Warrens was swift, as it always was, and the Longcoats came out amassed in a line, far enough away from The Docks to see the whole of it. It was quiet; no lights could be seen in the tannery sheds or the boathouses. Arroyo stood at the front of his forces. He told half the troops to split and circle around to the other side of the dackyard, and wiping his nose with a handkerchief, he led the rest forward. “Be as quiet as possible,” he warned them.

“You- _*hic!*_ -you got it boss!” one of the Distillery Brothers called.

Arroyo rolled his eyes and they kept processing forward, into the dockyard proper. The moon illuminated everything in a sickly pale glow, casting unnatural, sharp shadows on walls. Many of them looked like grasping hands, reaching out to grab and eat the Longcoats alive.

Arroyo marched onward, however. He remained undeterred . They did not know there were pigeons perched on the tops of some boathouses, and once they caught sight of the advancing enemy, they cried out, “Longcoats, Longcoats! Raise the alarm...!”

Arroyo looked up, along with the rest of his troops. The ferrets clutched the triggers for their artillery tighter, and the squirrels loaded their pistols (the ones too drunk to do so were given a hand by their brothers). Arroyo himself clutched his banner, and he could begin to feel his knuckles going white after a minute.

There was a piercing blaring sound in the air a moment later, and out of the boathouses, shacks and storehouses, came hundreds of pigeons, falcons, and lizards, all clad in yellow. “...More Civilized…?” Bellafide asked himself. “How…?”

The machine guns started firing off and riddling the Longcoat troops with bullets, killing dozens. Bellafide ducked down, and he could hear his men hitting the ground behind him. “Keep moving,” Arroyo instructed as he stood back up. “Don’t give them an inch!”

The squirrels charged in first, liquid courage running through their bodies. They kept shooting their revolvers, the sounds lost amidst a sea of gunfire and shouting. Many of them fell where they stood, and the ferrets weren’t much better off despite being in the back lines. Arroyo had to make his move now. He stomped on the ground three times as hard as he could, and kept his head low until he felt the dirt under him moving. He backed up.

A second later, a mole poked his muddy head out from the ground. “Is time to make big move?” he asked.

“And as quickly as possible,” Arroyo added. The Engineer nodded and hoisted himself up, out of the ground, followed by nineteen more moles who saluted Bellafide as they entered as fast as possible.

Arroyo himself nodded to them and raised his flag, rallying what troops he could to him amidst the chaos of war. “Everyone, to me!” he called. “We have our winning ticket!”

The Longcoats turned to face Arroyo and made their way to his side as quickly as possible. The bullets of the Wing Demons and the Nomad’s javelins remained merciless, and cut down more soldiers as they ran to Arroyo’s side, but luckily he still had significant numbers...though not significant enough to fight in open warfare. He looked at his forces, thought for a moment, then yelled, “Get into one of the boat houses and advance at all costs!”

His soldiers took his orders to heart and barreled through the doors to a nearby shed, which was met with gunfire from the rafters that mowed down the squirrels that had led the charge. Arroyo ran ahead of his troops to let them fight through. He had to get to the other side of The Docks to move the troops over there.

So he ran, his stamina from his time as a boxer coming in to aid him. Of course, he never actually _ran_ while in the ring, but he could at least keep his pace up as he ran up a flight of stairs and out onto the roof of the boathouse.

In the streets, the Longcoats were still fighting bitterly to advance; the ferrets remained in the back lines, launching artillery shells through the streets. They soared, and many of them landed on their targets, turning the Nomads into mangled, bloody messes. At the same time, the Wing Demons were flying directly into the back lines and firing their machine guns, either killing or severely wounding both the artillery and the infantry as they tried to push forward through what lizards still lived.

Arroyo could only look down on them for a moment before he too was brought back to reality by machine gun fire whizzing past him, brought down by more of the falcons. He grunted as he ducked down, then sprinted like mad across the rooftops. “I only wish I knew how Civilized forces even _got_ here,” he said to himself. He jumped across a gap between buildings and kept his pace up, but saw a few bullets whiz by and then heard the machine gun fire kick in full-force.

He could hear the falcon behind him yell, “Die, you fat, treasonous bastard!” Arroyo stole a quick glance behind him and saw the Wing Demon approaching quickly, the gun trained directly on him. Directly in front of him was a warehouse with a wide window.

He jumped the gap between the two buildings and covered his face as best he could. Arroyo heard the glass shatter into pieces, but he kept his eyes shut tight. In time, he felt his body hit the ground, and he tumbled forward a couple more feet.

Arroyo could barely feel anything on his body other than the glass digging into his arms and chest. He forced himself to stand up and saw that he was now in a large warehouse with empty rafters and sparsely populated with crates. “That’s muscle...not fat,” he said indignantly to himself.

Unfortunately, the falcon had decided to follow Arroyo in, heralded by the sound of more shattering glass and the rush of wind as he took a sharp one-eighty degree turn in the rafters to charge back at him. Though he had been cut in a few places from the flying glass, he was in no way weaker, and Arroyo had been winded already. The Wing Demon came streaking down from on high, the machine gun blazing to life again, and Arroyo ran. He ducked in between crates, using them to shield himself from the gunfire. All he was focused on was getting out of the enclosed space, and part of him must have thought he was going to die here. No such chance came.

The door on the ground floor flew open and off its hinges, and in came several squirrels and ferrets. They saw the falcon harassing Arroyo and immediately went about launching everything they had at him; bullets, artillery, everything. The falcon dodged and weaved between them for awhile, but eventually, a couple bullets clipped his wing, and he spiraled out of control, crashing headfirst into a wall. The resulting _*crack!*_ echoed around the room, and the falcon crumpled into a useless ball of feathers.

One of the Distillery Brothers ran up to Bellafide and reached out to help him up, which Bellafide quickly accepted. “You okay, sir…?” he asked.

Arroyo huffed. “I’ve come back from worse,” he said. “It’s just some glass anyway. You had best get back to seizing as much territory as possible!”

The squirrel saluted him and replied, “Yes, sir!” before he followed the rest of the squadron while Arroyo ran in the other direction, out of the warehouse. Back outside, even the stars of night were eclipsed by the mortar explosions going off, as well as the fire-halos of landmines in the distance. Arroyo looked left and right, then took off down the pavement, running to the east side. He at least knew the troops on the west side were pushing in, so he had nothing to fear about them.

Several yards over, he could see soldiers, fighting to the bitter end on stairs, rooftops, and piers to push forward. His Longcoats were holding...but they weren’t gaining anything either. In the heat of battle, he ran forward, waving the crest of the Longcoats. “To me…!”

When the forces on the east heard his call, they looked over to him, and all at once, fought harder than ever before to get to him. Even the most inebriated of squirrels knew when to push himself to his limits, and many of them paid for it. The bullets came flying back at the Civilized tenfold, and pigeons and falcons alike began to drop as the east-division Longcoats pushed their way to Arroyo.

And when they finally met, Arroyo felt his blood boiling with a newfound sense of conviction; so he called out, “Everyone...follow me…!” And follow they did. Arroyo ran forward as the Wing Demons, Volunteers, and Nomads began circling in. In the beginning, the pigeons kept their combat-oriented friends in the fight, but slowly, surely, the squirrels and ferrets began focusing them down, and in turn, the Civilized began to retreat.

The Longcoats shot them down and took over their ground, inch by grueling inch, until they had pushed them back into the central area of The Docks, where all the boat houses and the entrance to the main piers were. As it so happened, Arroyo marched up the avenue just as he saw a lizard tail slip into a warehouse door. He motioned for his army to halt for a moment. He surveyed the area, and noticed the warehouse itself was separate from the surrounding buildings, as well as being alone on a three-way intersection. Arroyo considered his options, nodded, then directed his squirrels to move out to the right. In the meanwhile, the ferrets opened fire on the warehouse, hammering the walls with artillery shells.

This, of course, made the residents inside peeved, to say the least, and they sent out a wave of lizards. They lasted about as long as a pile of now in the summer, as the squirrels on the right shot them all down, or otherwise finished them off if the ferrets didn’t. Arroyo crossed his arms. He knew the Civilized wouldn’t come out any time soon if they knew the Longcoats were outside. “Keep the artillery shelling going,” he instructed. The Freight Union obliged, and kept their dents in the walls fresh with iron and hot lead.

The Civilized inside sent out more lizards, which were wiped out as they marched out of the doors in single file, and Arroyo decided it was time for a counter attack. He raised his banner and marched forward, signaling to the Distillery Brothers it was time to move. With a hearty (and for most, half-drunken), warcry, they marched to the doors, and through sheer force of number and added shelling, completely broke them open. What waited inside was a firing squad.

Dozens of falcons up in the rafters and the remaining Nomads below were arrayed in tight formation, all facing the entrance, and once the Longcoats broke the door, they opened fire.

Bellafide immediately ducked down as he heard the roar of machine guns coming to life, and saw, all around him, holes opening up in the bodies of his soldiers. They fell in rapid succession, a strange mix of fear and numbness in their eyes. He retreated with what few squirrels had miraculously been spared, and set up a front line just outside the entrance, and kept the Distillery Brothers firing inside. Soon, the lizards began pushing out as more squirrels fell. With dwindling numbers, Arroyo began muttering to himself, trying to keep his head down. “I think it would be safer…” He instinctively ducked when he heard another artillery shell explode. “...Safer to circle around and meet up with the western division.”

But then, a dull thud sounded out, across the street. For a moment, the fighting froze. The thud sounded again. The Longcoats and the Civilized remained still, listening for what might be happening, and how it could benefit them. The thud sounded out one last time, and immediately after, a huge squadron of Longcoat moles burrowed out of the ground around the warehouse, yelling their battle cries. Just like that, the fighting resumed, though the Longcoats were first to start slinging bullets once they recognized the moles were on their side.

Soon, the intention of the Engineers was clear: after striking the walls of the warehouse, a deep groaning could be heard; even part of the roof broke off, due in part to the moles bashing on the supports and walls with their hammers.

And that, combined with the constant shelling of the Freight Union, brought the whole structure crashing down in an avalanche of steel and mortar.

Arroyo couldn’t help but smile as he watched the warehouse buckle, crushing almost every Civilized soldier inside. This left them weakened and easy to be destroyed. He decided to switch up his initial plan and force the Civilized toward the piers; they wouldn’t be able to scatter in every direction that way. And as if that crushing blow to Civilized forces wasn’t enough, he could see his own soldiers running down the streets from the west, any opposing presence in front of them being butchered. He looked down to see a mole standing in front of him, looking at the wreckage with his hammer over his shoulder. The Engineer looked back up and grinned.

“Is good,” he commented.

Arroyo nodded at the mole, then brought his gaze forward again. “Push…!” he commanded, and his soldiers answered with conviction. They marched down the streets, a steady tide of artillery and bullets forcing the Civilized backward, first down the streets, then across the piers, then into the sea. When the Civilized forces realized what was happening, many of them fled. It was easy, since most of them could already fly, but the Nomads were not so lucky. Either they died on their feet or they jumped off the docks and tried to swim away, which made killing them as easy as spear-fishing with a harpoon.

The Longcoats settled down to rest and feast before they returned to the Old South, but Bellafide stood on the edge of the pier; there was still blood in the water, and it stung his nose. In the lull, he couldn’t help but start talking to himself. “I wonder if these old docks will ever see honest workers again,” he murmured. “I wonder if everything will be peaceful...Because I know nothing will ever be _normal_ after this.” He sighed deeply and remained staring out over the deep sea, the moon glinting off the water’s surface.

Someone cleared their throat, and Arroyo turned around. Standing a few feet away was one of the Unioneers, holding a bottle of whiskey. “Heyyy, you okay, boss...?”

Arroyo sighed. “Yes, I just...I’m just thinking about what might happen after this war.”

The ferret shrugged and replied, “Eh...war’s war and you gotta push forward while you can. Worry about rebuilding when that time comes, maybe.”

Arroyo was silent for a moment, but he looked down at the street and nodded slowly. “Maybe you’re right,” he said at length. “Besides, I still need to see Archimedes flayed alive before I rest.”

The ferret chuckled and uncorked his bottle. “Glad to know you’re still brimming with enough rage to lead an army,” he said. “C’mon, boss, you better eat before all the meat’s gone.” He turned and left, taking another drink from his flask as Bellafide followed back to the camps.

As the smoke of the fires rose, they were watched. Carefully, collectedly, as if being searched for signs and portents. A lone figure was crouched on a hill, a pair of binoculars in his hands. He wore a mantle and cloak that completely concealed his face, and his gloves supported two mechanisms; one that concealed a blade above his right wrist, the left hiding a syringe of poison on a spring-action launcher.

Yet, the only thing that could be seen under his hood were a pair of cat-like, yellow eyes. He sat, watching the victory feast, his mind putting more and more pieces of a metaphysical puzzle together. He muttered something under his breath before putting the binoculars away and running in the other direction.

_“Gottfürsechen Wilden. Icht besten rechpurt bac zu General Radegunde.”_


	4. The Sun of Solawa

The Ends are not a welcoming place; it’s nothing but burning desert and polished granite as far as the eye can see. It wraps around the equator of Vyeshal, forcing underground travel to and from the north and south of the nation, unforgiving and unchanging. In some places, the sand burns so badly that it can flay the flesh from bones.

Thankfully, Solawa wasn’t located anywhere near that area. The city had been built in the southeast of The Ends, where the climate was hot, but not unbearable. The Civilized there made their living by trading with merchants from Scrapetown when they came by, and their terms were simple; either the merchants gave them meat, or the Civilized took it in the form of “tribute,” and while they weren’t under Sage Marro’s direct eye, they _were_ under his jurisdiction. As expected, the Civilized lived comfortably in the middle of a searing desert.

Until now, that is.

Even out in the wastelands of The Ends, there was fertile land, strange as it was. It was only around the perimeter of the desert, of course, but where it could be seized, there was opportunity to be won.

And Hopper had just so happened to seize a sizable portion of farmland only a few miles away from Solawa.

Hopper turned around. The gristmills were chugging away and the Swine were working the fields. They would harvest the grain, eat it, fatten themselves up, and when the time was right, the army could feast.

She stood on the top of a hill that gave her a perfect view of the city itself. While not as magnificent as Levacaloo, Solawa did have a slightly larger scope. Taking the city would be a difficult task, but if the Commonfolk could establish a foothold and take even half the city on the initial push, the rest would fall into place. Her army got themselves into position. When she gave the signal, they’d all start running like mad at the city limits and then do their damndest to push enough Civilized back to create a supply line between the gristmill and them. Some animals would call that a “surefire way to get yourself killed.” She called it an “uncommon method ta win.”

But all the pieces were in place now, and she had her troops mustered up from the Warrens in seconds. There was a small celebratory snack before the command to charge was issued, though, as either an early victory feast or a toast to a glorious death fighting for the cause.

“Could swing eitha’ way, really,” Hopper said as she raised her bottle of Warlord and downed half of it in one go.

The rest of the Commonfolk laughed a bit as they ate. There was an old friend of Hopper’s there to assist them, named Kasha. She didn’t have anything to drink but water, and rather than join the celebration in full, she was far more reserved. Everyone always assumed she was antisocial; after all, she carried a .380 caliber Bezrethay Rifle around and spent her summers picking off rustlers and trespassers before the Revolution. That was certainly part of it, but the other part was Hopper had saved her life years ago, taking her in when no one else would.

After eating their fill (and for many, they knew, their last meal), Hopper stood up, and lifted her flag. She looked out at everyone gathered, a ragtag group of Nomads, Trench Gangers, and Freight Unioneers. She nodded. “Alright, everyone! Ya ready ta give dese Civilized cowards da what-for!?”

The ringing throng that rose up from them made her grin and she turned on her heel, raising her flag high. Down the hill, she led them forward, across the sand to Solawa. It started as a military march, but then quickly raised to a jog, and then…

**“Charge…!”**

Hopper started full-on sprinting toward the city limits, followed closely by entire mob of commoners. What started as a rallying shout quickly evolved into an angry warcry as they surged over the desert sands. The city limits of Solawa weren’t guarded, so they had no trouble passing amongst the buildings there until the angry mob hit the market district.

That’s when the blood started running.

There were Civilized priests going about, browsing the merchants’ stalls, and none of them could have predicted being attacked by commoners until they heard their enraged screaming. That section of Solawa quickly transformed into a gruesome graveyard as both buyer and seller became little more than chopped meat.

But they didn’t stop. Hopper kept them going until they had penetrated into the heart of Solawa, chapels, apartments, and places of business on all sides. As they surged through, she directed, “Everyone, spread out! We’ll take dis city block by block!”

The Commonfolk whooped and groups of them began to splinter off, ranging in numbers from several to at least seventy. Hopper, however, stayed on her own, charging down the streets. Soon, however, Kasha caught up to her, and joined her side.

“Got somewhere t’be, Kasha?” she asked.

“I can’t just leave you alone to get killed,” Kasha replied, loading her rifle.

Hopper smirked at her. “I ain’t been killed yet, ain’t I?”

“Not even _your_ luck can last forever, Hopper,” she warned.

They took a right, going up to a higher street, and ran down the narrow straightaway between the buildings. They could see Civilized forces gathered at the end of the street, in a four-way crossing, finally ready to combat the oncoming tide of Commonfolk.

The squirrels, toads, pigeons, and falcons were all arrayed and ready to mow down anyone that came down the street wearing red, and once they saw Hopper and Kasha, that’s what they did. The machine guns flared to life, the bullets began to fly, and both of the other two quickly ducked into a nearby alley. The suppressing fire never stopped coming.

Hopper was about to roll up her sleeve and dash across the street, but Kasha held her back and picked up her rifle. “You stay put for a couple minutes,” she instructed. Kasha then turned the corner and made a quick shot with her gun and killed one of the falcons, a bleeding hole appeared in his head as he crashed into the cobblestone below. She ducked back into cover as the bullets started flying again, and took two more potshots before Hopper forcibly pulled her back into the alley.

“Hopper, what are you doing…?” she asked, almost incredulously.

“I ain’t riskin’ yer hide her no mo’, we gotta find another way ‘round.” She walked past Kasha and quickly poked her head out from behind the corner and back again. Once they so much as saw her snout, the Civilized began firing blindly down the street, hoping that maybe they could catch her. She retreated backward and scowled. “Well, _dat_ makes things interestin’...”

“Running back down that street is suicide, and you know it,” Kasha advised.

Hopper only grinned at her. “Interestin’ neva means ‘safe,’ Kasha.”

She sighed. Once Hopper was set on a course of action, no matter how stupid, it was hard to dissuade her. Instead, Kasha said she would run out first to draw their fire, and Hopper could run out about a minute after. She hoped that would be a large enough time gap to catch them by surprise and give her a head start.

Kasha braced herself for any possible bullet wounds, and then pounced. She skidded out of the alley and started running _toward_ the massed army, taking a couple hip-fire shots at them as she went. One went wide, and the other did nothing but wound a pigeon, but she didn’t have time to take any more before diving into another alley, wider and connected to a different street, to the side. A few of the soldiers broke ranks and went after Kasha, and once they were out of sight, Hopper herself broke out of her hiding place and tore off back down the street.

The Civilized screamed and hollered, revving up their guns again and letting fly a hail of bullets. Hopper, however, was surprisingly good at dodging them, despite only being able to serventeen side to side. She glanced back, grinning at her attackers, who were now, of course, trying to pursue. She had run to where she had initially started, and then…

Once she had reached the end of the street, there was a shout, coming from behind and above her. Hopper turned and looked up.

There were Commonfolk on tops of the buildings, and dozens more jumped out of the alleys.

They jumped out, and gave the Civilized group a terrible surprise. They might have had a lot of firepower, but it wasn’t enough to stem the angry tide of their own lizards, squirrels, ferrets, and chameleons. In just a few seconds and a hailstorm of lead, the Civilized force was reduced to a smoking pile of meat.

Hopper whooped and called out, “Good on ya! Make’em regret da day dey tried makin’ us inta da main dish!”

The rest of the army cheered as they surged ahead through the streets, and Hopper followed them before splitting off again, racing across side alleys and occasionally catching glimpses of more Commonfolk running in stride alongside her. She would raise her flag as a kind of salute, and they would raise a fist in return before losing sight of each other, but Hopper, otherwise, kept her eyes focused on the road ahead until she came to another major street in the city.

It was wide and clean, and far off to her right was a great chapel dedicated to the ancient figure known as the Blight Savior. Much of him was shrouded in mystery, so much so, that the very concept of if the Savior was male had become contested in recent months leading up to the Revolution. What _was_ certain was that he was a founding figure of the Civilized, the first Sage in a long line of high priests that continued the legacy of Harvest he left behind.

The Commonfolk however, had an ancient tradition, too. It was to respect the Tsarina more than some long-dead holy man.

And lo and behold, from down the road on the other side came a horde of commoners, sweeping over everything and raising their weapons high. Hopper saw them and grinned, and ran out to meet them. Once they saw her, many exclaimed, “There, there! There’s Hopper, follow her!”

So she waved them on, and led them down the street, running full speed ahead. Directly at the chapel. Some of the squirrels in the group shot out the windows on the front preemptively, though it became clear why soon. Hopper herself ran headlong at the door of the church and once she reached it, began to try and break it down with the other end of her banner pole. Then, the rest of the army caught up with her and helped themselves. In fact the wave of animals had gotten so massive by this point, many of them started climbing over each other to break the windows and get in that way, but soon, the door itself went down.

And who should be inside but the very Civilized priests the Commonfolk hated so passionately, sitting at a table lined with cooked Swine and other meats?

“Kill’em…!”

The clergy never stood a chance. In no time at all, the Commonfolk had rolled through the chapel and butchered the Civilized inside, and a few stayed to chow down on what was left behind, but Hopper...Hopper knew her duty at this minute was to keep moving, and direct her army when possible.

* * *

The afternoon was quiet that day. Mainly because Hopper was out causing trouble somewhere _else,_ but for once it seemed Station Two Hundred Two was, one could say...peaceful.

During a revolution, however, nowhere can stay quiet for long

At the back of the station, close to the old, rusty train tracks, there was a deafening explosion, and the bricks and mortar flew in every direction. Almost immediately, the lower streets fell into chaos, and it only got worse when moles, chameleons, skunks, toads, falcons, and pigeons clad in green began flowing in in massive numbers.

There were some near the tracks who tried to hold them back, but it was a futile effort in the end. If they didn’t get caught off-guard and bludgeoned to death, they simply got surrounded and shot to pieces. After seeing that, many others tried to flee to the surface and use the Warrens to relocate, but as they ran toward the old subway terminals that led back up, they received another nasty surprise in the form of more KSR forces pushing them back down. Those who ran forward were shot and easily brushed aside like dust.

And leading The KSR on that front was none other than the Quartermaster.

“I vant thees station combed and _burned,”_ she commanded as her troops marched down to the streets of the shanty town. “Eef you find Hopper, bring her to me. Shoot her legs, chop off her other arm, I don’t care how, just make sure she comes to me so I can _personally_ lock her up in a prison transport. On the double!”

The troops around her knew not to take her word lightly, and actually pushed _harder_ to get into the center of Station Two Hundred Two as fast as possible. It was certainly easy, given that compared to the might of The KSR, the rabble living there might as well have been toddlers toting crossbows around, and the Quartermaster was able to find Hopper’s shanty sitting on top of the many others in no time.

She kicked the door wide open and pulled out a pistol from a holster on her hip and aimed it around the entryway. No sign of Hopper. She shifted her eyes around and strode over to another door on the left and forced it open to find her bedroom. Nothing inside but a musty bed, a closet, and a table with some trinkets. She walked over to inspect them, spat, and knocked a them off the table. Nothing but old letters, a small wooden statuette of the Tsarina, and a worn photo. “You don’t even deserve to _speak_ her **name** anymore,” she spat.

The Quartermaster walked back out to a couple of skunks who had personally overseen her travel through the city so far. “Move,” she instructed, waving them along.

She met up with a few more KSR troops who were busy either raiding homes or executing those were too foolhardy for their own good. After a few minutes, she saw a smaller detachment of soldiers round a corner, and called out, “You, halt!” The soldiers complied immediately and she walked up to them, eyes and face as stone-solid as ever. “Have you found Hopper yet?”

“No, ma’am,” a squirrel said.

“Then look _harder._ I know she’s still here, somewhere. Skulking in the shadows, no doubt.”

“Well, ma’am, you see…” The Quartermaster looked over at one of the pigeons, her left eyebrow raised. “...We’ve been around the whole city, Miss Quartermaster, ma’am.”

Her pupils shrunk. “You’ve been around thees station...and there’s **no** sign of her…? **Anywhere…?”**

“Hell, we been around it twice, and _no_ one’s seen her,” one of the chameleons muttered. The rest of the group tried to shush him and one of the squirrels punched him in the back.

It was obvious the Quartermaster heard it as she gritted her teeth and twitched. **“...Twice…?”** she repeated.

The detatchment shrunk from her gaze and the chameleon got death stares, but the Quartermaster didn’t execute any of them on the spot. She didn’t pistol whip even one. Instead, she ordered them to round up as many Commonfolk as possible and send them off to Hagro while she ran some...impromptu interrogations.

The fires were subsiding. All around, Commonfolk were being marched away in chains, many toward a train car, or if they had proved unruly, they were sent back up to the surface to walk back to Hagro, overseen by a lieutenant. A chameleon slammed another squirrel’s head down onto a crate and held him there. He struggled, crying out, “No, no! I don’t wanna die yet, please! I ain’t even had my third round’a orn today!”

His struggling was stopped when he heard the click of the hammer of a pistol and felt steel on top of his head. He looked up slowly as everything came into view: the green gloves, the cape, the uniform...the Quartermaster, standing over him and glaring him down.

_“Where. Ees. She…?”_

The squirrel was frozen, his eyes twitching, looking every which way more or less at random. “...W...what…?”

“The leader of your treacherous rebellion…!” she cried. “Hopper Silvya, the ‘Flagbearer of the Commonfolk…!’ Where ees she…!?”

The squirrel remained frozen in fear for a moment but eventually stuttered out, “I don’t...I don’t-”

There was a gunshot that cut him off and killed him instantly. The chameleon looked down at the body, sighed, and cast it aside and left to go keep the other prisoners in line. The Quartermaster, meanwhile, looked down at the common rabble and cleaned the barrel of her pistol of blood splatter that came from the hole in his head.

She looked out across the shantytown as The KSR marched their prisoners onto the transport trains. She spat. “Uneducated rabble. They vill never realize Hopper ees leading them to suicide.”


	5. Hollow

Bellafide threw the doors to The Old South open again, his coat damp from the rain that was now coming down from outside. The troops that had come back filed into the tavern behind him, their shoulders sagging and many of the ferrets were trying to crack their necks and stretch the muscles. “All of you, go store your weapons,” he instructed, wringing out one of his cuff links, “and go get something to eat. We still have work to do later.”

He sighed and made for his office as his soldiers threw off their hats and went to go hang their guns in the weapons rack in the storeroom west of the bar. Arroyo, however, had some accounting to do. The war was proving more costly than he had initially planned, and even though he had a sizable number of Swine to use as rations, it still paled in comparison to what the Civilized could muster with Sage Marro still sitting on the throne in Levacaloo, and pushing that far deep into enemy territory at this point was probably the worst idea anyone could have.

As he went to the stairs to the second floor, he noticed something: the doors to the Swine’s quarters were wide open. Arroyo rolled his eyes and huffed. “Butter must’ve forgotten to lock the outer access doors. Perfect. Now I’ll need to interrogate my troops to see if they saw anyone sneaking in here…” As he walked over to them, a thought dawned on him. “Well...as long as I’m here, perhaps I should check them before I get distracted.”

He descended the short stairway into the Swine’s den. Unlike most other holding cells for the beasts, Arroyo had made sure to spare no expense when making his. The floor was made of sturdy, checkered, cut marble, the walls were made of polished mahogany complete with a painting and bookshelves, and there was even a fireplace on the opposite wall, complete with two sofas and a coffee table. There was even a space for cheskers they could use to pass the time; providing all these amenities helped fatten them up. However, out of all the Swine he kept in The Old South, he could only see three: one inspecting a wide and tall pile of bound grain, one was looking at the painting, and the last one sat by the fire, smoking a cigar.

Seeing the first Swine looking at the grain, he strode over and asked, “Swine, will this much, erm... _yellow grass_ be enough for you? I saw you mulling over it…”

“Oh, yes, perfectly fine,” the shorter pig said. “It will last awhile, ser.”

“Good.” Arroyo left the Swine to his own devices, and cast a sideways glance at the one in the dress, inspecting the painting. She must have noticed.

“Ser, may I ask you something?” she said.

“Make it quick, Swine, I still have work to do,” Arroyo huffed impatiently.

She mostly kept staring at the painting, as if afraid to make eye contact with him. “I haven’t seen Swine Four-Nineteen in a couple days. Was he with you when you defended The Docks? Was he above or...below-”

“We didn’t even _need_ to seize land at The Docks, so I had no need for Swine. And _no,_ I do not know his assignment at present...nor do I care. I’ll...most likely stumble across it when I’m doing my paperwork tonight,” he rambled, waving his hand as he ended his sentence uncaringly.

Without missing a beat, the pig replied, “I understand, ser. Carry on.” Arroyo sighed and turned away again, toward the staircase where the rest of the Swine lived, on the second story. In fact, he figured he might find that Swine the other asked about up there. It wouldn’t surprise him. They were _beasts_ anyway.

“Hello, Mister Bellafide,” the Swine in the chair said in passing.

Arroyo froze for a moment, then glanced back at the Swine. “How...do you know my name…?”

The Swine took another drag of his cigar and coolly stated, “Animals mention it all the time in passing. You’d be surprised the things they say in front of us.”

Arroyo wiped some sweat off his forehead and stated, “Well, I don’t care _what_ the animals say in front of you, you and your ilk only should speak when spoken to. It would save me a heart attack.”

“Well, you should, ser,” the pig replied as he shook some ash into the ashtray on the table next to him, “especially when there are insurgents about.”

_“What?”_ Arroyo’s face began to show red under his fur and bushy beard. _“Insurgents?_ If I find you spreading _lies,_ Swine…” he muttered as he came around the chair and stared the pig in his eyes.

“No, no!” The pig exclaimed, holding his hands up, “we would never lie to you...I just figured you should be warned, after all, giving us such a nice place to live.”

“Then who is planning to betray me? Speak, Swine!”

The pig sat up straight on the sofa and placed the cigar over the ashtray so he could use his hands. “A couple nights ago, we heard some of the Distillery Brothers mention in passing…”

“...The squirrels…” Arroyo fumed quietly.

“...That they had become dissatisfied and, erm... _disillusioned_ with the war. They said they were going to break into The Gut, steal as much food and orn as possible, and run northward,” the Swine explained.

There was barely a pause as Arroyo stormed outside, holding his banner high, and his sudden, terrifying presence in the tavern caused a lot of animals to shriek and drop their glasses. “Traitors!” Arroyo roared, “There are traitors among us! Some rogue Distillery Brothers are planning to steal the food in our larder, right out from under our noses!”

All across the distillery, animals began muttering in between each other, asking, “Is that true?” and “Would they really steal our food?” Some of the ferrets and moles even grabbed a few squirrels nearby and threatened to beat the truth out of them. “But I have a question for you all!” Arroyo continued, “And it is as simple as this: ‘Are you just going to _stand_ there and allow it…?’”

There was silence for all of twenty seconds before the entire tavern erupted into enraged yells of **“Never…!”**

“Then follow me! To the Gut!” Arroyo commanded as he began to march out of the tavern. Although tired from returning from battle, the thought of losing their food supply spurred those who were fatigued back to action, and those who had remained at The Old South to march even faster. The Longcoats stormed out, through the howling rain and biting wind, and toward the Gut, their version of The KSR’s Larder. It was only a few miles away, but squirrels could be extremely vicious and quick with food and even more orn on the line. In their haste, however, the ones who left failed to notice a hooded figure, hanging on a windowsill on the second story.

The stranger, who looked like a living shadow outside in the storm, quickly braced his legs on the wall and lifted himself, slowly, carefully, and perched on the sill. While not big, the window was inset into the wall far enough that he could sit in the alcove, even if it was slightly uncomfortable. The stranger checked the lock, poked it once with his finger, then extended the blade on his right wrist. It popped out of its sheath, the blade itself extending beyond the stranger’s hand by about five more inches, making the blade itself at least fourteen inches long.

Without hesitation, the stranger took that blade and jabbed it into the lock on the window, jostling it around until he heard the gears and mechanisms inside break like glass. He then slid the window up and swung his legs inside, closing the window behind him.

He didn’t linger long. The only thing that made him pause, it seemed, was the large oil painting of Bellafide Junior on the far wall. After staring at the boy’s picture for a minute, the stranger scoffed and then walked over to Bellafide’s desk. Thankfully for him, he didn’t have to worry about more locks; in fact, very few drawers were locked, and he ignored them after opening up several ones that were already open and rifling through the papers inside.

_“Ich wesch Ich könnte reht efen Halbe diese Lämvage,”_ he muttered to himself as he thumbed through dozens of financial reports, employee records, and the like. _“Nicht vel leng, tcho. Was emmer es ist, es ist helrette zimler zu Gottstok an.”_

He picked up as many of the papers as possible, a couple from each drawer, and tied them all together with thick twine. It was then he noticed a smaller table in the corner of the office, covered in a thick layer of dust and surrounded by child’s toys. The stranger figured that perhaps, if he found nothing of note if he could translate in these papers, maybe he should have secondary files to study. And besides, he could learn along with whoever the papers belonged to; they were obviously on a table made for a child. No language barrier could make that confusing.

After taking several more papers from the few stacks on the child’s table, the stranger returned to the window, opened it back up, swung his legs outside, and closed the window behind him. He then slid his way down until he was hanging off the windowsill again, and he dropped to the ground.

By cover of the storm, he ran away from The Old South Distillery, as if he had never been there.

* * *

 The Gut was not a large building, more like a settlement; rather unassuming, one might say. It was a purely tactical choice, as Bellafide knew The Larder was directly attached to The KSR headquarters in Hagro, but The Old South didn’t have the space for an attached ration storage.

Thankfully, he had the foresight to only build it a couple miles away from the distillery, and it was a mostly ruined, unassuming village...of sorts. There _were_ cabins and gristmills, but they had been long-abandoned. Most of them. Bellafide marched ahead of his soldiers amidst the collapsed buildings. Though he knew only squirrels were trying to rob him and his army, he knew caution took a pedestal over imminent revenge; after all, he wasn’t sure how many squirrels were against him here. Fifty? Five-hundred? The numbers made all the difference in war.

“Keep your eyes open,” he called back, “They could be anywhere.”

And that’s how they remained. Unioneers kept their hands tensed and ready to fire and the loyal Distillery Brothers kept their pistols trained in every direction, if they could still aim, but they moved forward without stopping.

As they marched, they passed a couple of the houses that were meant to be occupied, but upon opening the doors, they found nothing, save for an empty cellar. Once or twice, they found blood spatters across the walls and floors, indicating that there _was_ something here. Or had been, at least. Arroyo checked through the cellars personally, and it confirmed his fears: the Distillery Brothers had made off with the food being stored here, and had killed what Longcoats were stationed in the Gut to keep this insurrection a secret. “And they probably ate _them,_ too,” he muttered as he left the third cellar cleaned out so far.

He came back out and led the Longcoats through the town, eerily quiet as the rain had slowed to a drizzle, and they walked for three more minutes before something sounded out. The rustling of bushes.

“Hold,” Arroyo muttered, holding up his hand. The Longcoats stopped short in front of a small grove of bushes on one of the settlement streets. The rustling continued. The silence mounted, the army waiting to catch a glimpse of what was hiding, ready to unleash the full fury of The Firebrand on whatever poor soul was unlucky enough to come out. “We know you’re there,” he called. “Show yourself. Friend or foe?”

The rustling stopped, and there was silence, save for the soft splashing of the rain.

Then, an animal stumbled out of the foliage. One of the Distillery Brothers. Naturally, everyone arranged behind Bellafide jolted forward, but he spread his arms out to stop them. The squirrel himself seemed near-dead from fear. To make it worse, for him, was the Bellafide recognized him.

“Vojsch…?”

The squirrel went rigid and saluted him. “H-h-hi, boss!”

Arroyo, of course, was not here to dance around the question, and immediately demanded, “Vojsch, do you know where your more... _dissatisfied_ siblings are?” He paused and quirked an eyebrow. “...Are you _one_ of them, may the Tsarina forbid…?” Vojsch bit his lip and his eyes began snapping in different directions. Arroyo also noticed his hands twitching a bit by now. _“...Vojsch…?”_

There wasn’t even a pause as the squirrel looked back and yelled, “Run fellas, run-” before being gunned down by one of his own siblings on the front lines. Once so much as one word was said, however, there was a louder rustling and soon the Longcoats saw a stampede of squirrels jumping out of the underbrush and running off, carting crates of food and orn with them.

Arroyo didn’t even need to say a word before the army opened fire on them all. The bullets and shelling was mowing the traitors down faster than they could disappear over the horizon, or jump back into the nearby forest. Arroyo quickly waved his hands out to the side. “I want half of you to circle to the left, close in and flank them, now! Everyone else, march forward!” As the Longcoats marched out, he remained in place, clutching his banner and staring dead ahead.

“Cut them all down,” he muttered to himself.

* * *

 The sight of The Old South just over the horizon was of small comfort to Bellafide and his army returning from the Gut. The soldiers’ coats were drenched in blood, water, and mud, and many of the ferrets were carting both their artillery launchers and the food and drink that the traitorous Distillery Brothers had tried to steal. They came home dirty, frustrated, and even more tired than before...but a victory was a victory. In times like this, the bloodier, the better.

Arroyo threw the front doors to the distillery wide open, heralding their return. The soldiers who hadn’t left to stem the tide of insurgents turned their heads and raised their glasses. “Welcome back, boss,” was what they said in some form or another.

Arroyo only sighed and replied, “Hello again,” weakly as he placed his banner against the wall in the entry and walked past the bar. Butter was busy cleaning glasses by now (and Arroyo noticed he’d also locked the doors to the Swine’s den, thank goodness), and only had the strength to wave to him.

“Welcome back, Bellafide,” he said in passing.

It felt like it took years, but he walked back up to his office and entered the cold, dark space once again. Arroyo trudged in wearily, but something managed to catch his eye. It was something on his son’s table. Arroyo turned his head and noticed there was something...different about the papers on his desk.

He’d walked by it enough times to remember exactly what the paper on top of the desk was; a page from a book his mother wrote, bless her soul. But that page was gone, and now the paper on top was one of the forms he’d given to Junior to help calculate revenue. He swore to never touch anything on that table ever again, and suddenly he felt a numb rage settle in his heart. Normally, he would have stomped right back out of his office and demanded to know who was snooping around in there, but his legs were shot from marching everywhere.

Instead, he opted to put on an angry scowl as he made for his own desk and sat down. After his ritual of turning on the desk lamp, adjusting his spectacles, and sorting the papers already on top of it, he opened two drawers and pulled out a couple stacks of paper and a pen. He took one slip off the pile and began writing on it, deducing costs, contingency plans, et cetera, and went to the next page.

After four papers, he noticed something else was wrong. “That’s strange…” he muttered. He put the page he’d been working on down and started shuffling through the rest of the stack. “They’re gone.” He started opening drawers at random and leafing through the files inside, and his fears were confirmed: several files were missing, but oddly enough, they were all the most random things. An early draft from one of his wife’s books, The Old South’s expenses from several years ago, a document of his boxing circuit of his first year as a heavyweight…

“It’s as if whoever took them didn’t even know what they were stealing,” he muttered to himself. “...I can’t imagine anyone would send a _spy_ that didn’t know what they were doing.” He paused and slowly brought his gaze to rest on his son’s desk again. That gnawing rage took hold again, but it wasn’t as gut-wrenching as usual. “But whoever they are, they have made an _enemy_ today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a shorter, less action-oriented chapter. I don't think I can write back-to-back war scenes. Wears on my creative process and I imagine it gets boring for the reader, not that I can write battle scenes all that well to begin with.


	6. Children of God

Tearing through the forest at dusk was an almost magical experience. The trees around him were a collage of reds, oranges, and yellows, all arranged into rainbows. It would have been far more beautiful if he could actually stop and wander for a bit, but he was on a mission, and had to return to Instlandung posthaste.

For as long as he was under the horizon line, the trees kept him concealed, and there were a surprisingly few amount of soldiers of _any_ kind in the west of the continent. He could take shelter in abandoned mills and houses as he traveled, though thankfully, it only took five days at most to get to the western shores; and with his training, not only could he move fast, he could move without stopping.

Coming over the next hill, he saw it, sitting on the west shore. The town was small, but thanks to the supply line back to Gottesburt, it was growing quickly. Already, the barracks were being painted over, and what few cottages there were already had their outer decor being built. This late into the evening, Instlandung was still a hubbub of activity...though it was mostly the military sort.

He slipped through the crowds of men and women clad from head to foot in armor, their mantles of violet finely pressed and ready to strike terror into their enemies. No one bothered him, even though his black and violet mantle stood out like a sore thumb, and the cloak over his head concealed a quick, remorseless mind. He ran through them all, deep into the village until he came to a house on the edge of the docks, meant to evacuate whoever lived there first and foremost to the shipyard in case of a breach of the defenses.

Inside this little cottage were many pictures, paintings, and curios, all shipped over from Gottesburt when the army had declared their crusade. The whole house was silent, almost unnaturally so, because there was only one occupant, and she was busy bent over a table in the back room of the house. She stood, in full plate armor, over a map. It was woefully incomplete; only the west coast was fully mapped out, as well as some portions of the south of the continent.

She kept studying it until, in the back of her mind, she felt something was...amiss. She raised her head up quickly, messing up the combing job she had done for her black hair, but she didn’t feel threatened. Instead, she paused for a moment, then said, “Vhelcome back, Phyrros.”

There was another silence that lasted all of two seconds before someone groaned and walked out from behind the corner. He pulled the hood of his cloak down to reveal his trussed brown hair, angular jawline, and finely-trimmed beard. “You _must_ be kidding me. Am I losing my touch, General Radegunde?”

“No,” she said, standing up fully and backing away from the map as Phyrros walked up to it, “I’ve just got an ear for zhese tsings now.”

Phyrros sighed and bent over the map. He looked around the table for a moment before Radegunde held out the pen she had been using and he took it with a muttered, “Tsank you,” before scribbling on the south of the continent. He remained hard at work for a couple minutes before Radegunde interrupted, “So, have you found...anytsing _else_ of note yet…?”

“As a matter of fact…” he said, straightening back up, “I _did_ manage to find zhese documents in a general’s headquarters.” He pulled out a couple bundles of paper from the inside of his mantle and set them down on the map where nothing had been drawn yet.

Radegunde set about cutting the bindings up and started leafing through each document individually. After awhile she looked back up at Phyrros with her brow lowered and said, “Andt you’re _sure_ you can translate zhis in seven months…?”

“Give or take,” Phyrros replied as he traced out what he remembered of the countryside to the southwest. “But if you look _very_ closely, you’ll see zhis language is surprisingly similar to Gottstok.”

“I don’t doubt zhe complexity of zheir speech, I’m just unsure of your speed. Vhill you have a vhorking lexicon done in time, andt all zhat?”

“If zhose savages keep zhemselves distracted vithz killing each othzer und don’t check zheir vhestern borders, vhe have all zhe time in zhe vhorld,” Phyrros replied.

“Speaking of,” Radegunde continued, “some of our initial scouts have reported seeing at least two more armies, vhone in zhe north, vhone living in zhe equatorial desert. Certainly tsomtsing you should look into as quickly as possible.”

“How in God’s name vhould anotzher army be living in zhat desert? Zhere’s no sources of vhater for miles inward,” he muttered to her.

Radegunde rolled her eyes and smiled impishly. _“You’re_ zhe Spymaster.”

Phyrros sighed and massaged his forehead. “Did zhey say anytsing about zhe othzer army?”

“Aside from zhe fact zhey marched in perfect rank andt file vithz each othzer tsrough zhe biting cold?” she said, “Notsing of note. Just green uniforms.”

Phyrros sighed and stood up, making for the door. “Zhen I’d best be off to zhe northern lands,” he said. He raised his hood as he walked, and Radegunde followed him.

“You’ll go to zhe armorer first,” she said, “andt you’ll get yourself some extra padding andt layers. Take extra rations if you need zhem, andt be _extremely_ careful not to get caught in a blizzard.” Phyrros mostly ignored her as she walked in step alongside him. “If zhe vind starts picking up, you run back zhe vhay you came; vhe can alvhays run reconnaissance later, andt back you up vithz more men if you need zhem.”

He groaned as he reached the door and looked back to her. “God above, you’re just like mothzer.” He didn’t wait for a response as he slammed the door shut and ran over to the armorer to get extra wool for his uniform, and from there, to the shipyard and got his first pick of rations.


	7. The Boiling Point

Nikolos looked herself over in her bathroom mirror and sighed. The powder on her face was wet and clung, matting her fur. It would take  _ weeks _ to wash out properly. She gave up trying to get a head start on it after fifteen minutes and opted to start curling her hair and combing all the fur on her neck.

She wouldn’t be in this position, worrying about her disastrous makeup, if The KSR and the clergy could at least agree on a temporary solution. With all the shouting and sudden interruptions, the auditorium was  _ bound _ to heat up quickly, as everyone was throwing around either heated accusations or hot air. She wanted to send small groups of the military out to the east and west in hopes of finding fertile land elsewhere. Sage Marro wanted to ramp up Swine breeding, thereby increasing Gristmill output. They said hundreds of words and yet, at the end of the day, nothing got done.

The hearth felt less and less warm the more she stood in front of it, even though the flames crackled and danced playfully. Maybe it was her age catching up to her. Nikolos sighed again as she looked up at the portrait that had been painted of her when she was crowned. She shook her head and opted to get some sleep, as chances were that the same arguments would continue tomorrow.

But before she could even move her head, an arm wrapped around her throat, swiftly and sternly, and silenced her. She started choking. Her attacker then pressed a syringe into her neck, then quickly pushed her forward. Nikolos fell, hitting the floor face-first. The world was a haze now, and she could barely push herself up and over on her side. From her watering, blurred vision, she saw a form in a full-black cloak break a palace window, and threw themselves out.

She tried to call after whoever it was, but her voice came out as raspy and barely audible. She started coughing.  _ Violently _ coughing. It felt like her intestines were trying to force themselves out of her throat.

Nikolos lost her balance and her strength very quickly, and fell back to the floor. She tried to cry out for help this time, but it caught in her stomach, only coming out as a small gurgle. Pitifully, she flopped over on her side, her chest heaving up and down in a desperate effort to keep her blood supplied with air and her brain working. But the more she tried to call for help, the worse the pain and the blurriness got. She felt herself lapsing in and out of consciousness.

Soon, the flames in the hearth fizzled out.

When KSR officers on duty came to Nikolos’ room to discuss some rather traitorous ideas about leaving the clergy to try and figure out their own problems, the only thing that could instead be heard in the palace halls was,  “Quick! Quick! Call the Quartermaster! Tsarina Nikolos has been assassinated!”


	8. The Sunset Over Solawa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For optimal reading experience, play https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5B5FRcbdiA on repeat during battle scenes.

The sand burned, but in many ways, it was a penance. A penance for his failures and lack of faith in the Civilized cause. Archimedes strode along across the dunes, under the late afternoon sun. While it hadn’t been blistering hot for at least two hours anymore, it was still uncomfortably warm. He marched along with his followers. Tooth Collectors, Nomads, Engineers, and Toads. The destitute and cast-out. He came to them as he wandered in exile from Levacaloo weeks prior; just as his old followers had died, new ones were shown the light.

They wandered as the days turned to weeks. Archimedes had been leading them towards Solawa, using what instincts he could muster in such trying times. “Great Missionary, sir, sir?”

Archimedes glanced down at the Nomad tugging at his robe, which he gently but firmly took out of his grasp. “Yes, child?”

“Nomad’s friend say he’s hungry, very hungry! We stop to feast soon?” the lizard asked expectantly.

Archimedes only chuckled lightheartedly. “Patience, my friend. There is a time for the sun to shine; there is a time for the tree to grow.” He gently patted the lizard’s head and kept them walking to the southeast. Not even five minutes later, the same Nomad pulled at Archimedes’ robes again, and he looked back down at him, now frowning.

“Great Missionary, Nomad’s friend still hungry, and now he’s hungry, too! Should we eat now, should we?”

Archimedes sighed and recounted, “Those who seek to feast during activity will get nothing to eat, nor will they accomplish their appointed task.”

“If you’ll pardon my forwardnessss, Great Missionary,” one of the snakes said as he strode out of the crowd, “you sssseem to be dodging the quesstion.”

“And for good reason,” Archimedes rebuked him. His followers went silent immediately, stunned by his words. “If I should tell you, ‘We will eat now,’ what would you do?” he asked.

The silence weighed heavy, but another Tooth Collector eventually said, “We would sssstop to hold a vote.”

“And then?”

“...And then feast,” the snake finished.

“But if I said, ‘No, we shall not feast yet,’” he continued, beginning to lead his followers forward, “what would you do?”

“We would keep walking,” one of the toads chimed in, “and we would go hungry.”

“And if you were to go hungry, how would you all feel?” he asked.

“...Empty, but...focused on finding food,” he replied.

“As it should be. My children,” he said, turning back to face them all, “Your hunger is a curse, true...but it is also a gift. While the pangs ring sharp in your gut, your vision will sharpen….smell will pick up even the tiniest morsel on the wind. Therefore, my flock, feasting is just as important as starving.” He continued to walk forward, over more dunes of sand and rock, and his followers trailed closely behind, hanging on his every word. “...For if one does nothing but starve, he will grow accustomed to it, and not know how to locate a source of food. So too is this true for those who only feast; for they will not know how to live with an empty belly even for a second.”

The animals gathered considered his words, a couple muttering among themselves. “Now, come,” Archimedes said, “We have a long journey ahead of us. It will be just as arduous as the days before, if not more so. We can only hope and pray that the sun will shine down on us and-”

He stopped himself abruptly, for as he walked over the next hill, he saw it: Solawa, in all its red brick and sandstone glory. As the rest of the Civilized came over the hill and saw it, they smiled, cheered, and cried out glory to the Sun and Tree. Archimedes himself turned to face them again, holding his banner high. “You see, my flock,” he articulated, “patience is its own reward. Tonight, we feast!”

The animals began cheering and happily followed him toward the city, cajoling all the way. The Civilized walked down the hill toward the city limits, and little by little, their cheering slowed and lost vocal power, until it stopped entirely. What lay before them was a massacre: fellow members of the clergy, splayed out on the ground, their flesh rended. The merchants lay dead in their own kiosks; everything they had, stolen. Archimedes stared around in shock, but his brow lowered after awhile, and the corners of his mouth turned downward. “Who is responsible for this...this... _blasphemy?”_ he hissed to no one in particular. He only lingered a moment longer before calling his flock to him, and held up his banner. “Come, my children!” he called, “Whoever has committed this act shall _pay_ for their treachery!”

They marched into the city proper, between the brick apartments and offices, amongst the clutter and debris on the streets. They walked around corners and through alleyways, and every once in awhile, one of the animals would point out the broken windows of a storefront or delicatessen, and once, they found a pile of bodies.

Archimedes bent down to inspect them after pushing his way through the crowd. They were Civilized soldiers, for certain. Squirrels, pigeons, falcons, and the charred remains of toads, all strewn about the four-way intersection. Some missing limbs and flesh to be consumed, of course. Archimedes stood back up and gazed out across the street. “...All of you, spread out. Find any remaining soldiers and group up with them.”

He began to walk away, down another street, and a Nomad called, “Wait, wait! What about you, Great Missionary?”

“I must find the main cathedral of Solawa,” he replied without skipping a beat, “and tend to anyone still left alive. Now, go! Tree and Sun be with you.” Archimedes and his flock were about to part ways when the a hollow explosion echoed around the intersection. There was still a fight going on, somewhere to the south side of the city.

So he marched away as his flock went toward the sounds of war. He walked, and he walked. Climbing over most of the crates and other debris on the street was not the easiest thing to do for a rat his age, but the thought of finding another way around and having to get close to the conflict kept him moving bull-headed in one direction. He walked a few miles to the northeast, where the highest concentration of cathedrals was, but on the way, heard more explosions, from the south again. Then, for the first time yet, he heard the gunfire. And said gunfire was _much_ closer than he anticipated.

He was about to retreat backward again, when he heard battle cries and boots hitting the stone pavement coming his way. Before he could duck out of sight or even turn around to see what was happening, he heard a few voices call out, “Hey! Hey…! It’s Archimedes, look!”

Archimedes froze, cold sweat dripping down his forehead. He heard them coming closer, their footfalls mirroring his hammering heart. He slowly turned his head, inch by laborious inch, to see who had come for him.

And to his relief, there was a large group of soldiers in yellow, running toward him as a toddler runs to his mother. And from around street corners and alleyways, they kept coming, until there was barely any room to walk around the plaza they found Archimedes in. They crowded him, shouting their praises that the Great Missionary had returned.

Though he did enjoy the prestige and attention, Archimedes raised his hands for silence to calm them down, and the Civilized quickly went around hushing each other. After a momentary pause, he spoke. “O faithful of the church,” he began, “I am glad to see you all here today, in the midst of such strife. But I do not know how this strife came about…”

“It was the Commonfolk, Great Missionary!”

Archimedes turned his head to look at a falcon braced against a cracked old fountain, one leg on its outer rim and holding a cigar. “They stormed in ‘round two days ago, killed everyone that wasn’t wearin’ red.”

Upon hearing this, Archimedes’ brow furrowed slowly, and he scowled. “I should have known,” he spat, “that the Commonfolk would try to seize power away from us.”

“Why would they _do_ such a thing?” a pigeon cried.

Archimedes looked over to her and stood up straight, hoisting his banner into the air. “Because they are jealous!” he declared. “They covet our ways, our _enlightenment..._ They seek to tear us down, make us no better than **beasts.”** The gathered masses raised a cacophony of screeches, jeering, and curses on those who pledged themselves to Hopper and her Revolution. “But it shall not be so…!” Archimedes called again, bringing them all to silence. “Solawa will not fall this day. This day, the Civilized will feast!”

This, understandably, raised a growing wave of fervor, brought about by a minister with honeyed words and a pit in their stomachs. Archimedes raised his banner, and will a rallying call of “Come, my children!” the Civilized ran ahead to seek out where the Commonfolk were hiding like attack dogs.

* * *

They had rushed through the south side, breaking into apartments and offices with impunity, and those who didn’t immediately rally to the Commonfolk’s cause were shot and dragged backward into the territory they had already taken to be cooked. Near half of the city was theirs, and many of the Commonfolk militia had fought to the bitter end to hold and secure it, block by block.

It had been two days of near constant fighting, because the Civilized were so prevalent that they held in their hearts the belief that they wouldn’t be rooted out so quickly. Hopper made sure to break that resolve down as she and her soldiers swept over another street; what few Civilized soldiers there were were melted by a sea of hungry pistols, spears, claws and teeth almost instantly. Hopper herself was having too much fun with the whole fight, laughing like a schoolgirl as she ran at the forefront of her army. “C’mon! Burn it down…! Da Commonfolk’re dinner no mo’!”

She kept them all moving across the streets and through burned-out apartments. The Revolution had only been going strong for around two weeks now, and already the consequences of war were rearing their ugly heads. Windows were broken, living spaces had to be evacuated and relocated...in some ways, it felt like the end of the world. The Commonfolk kept moving from avenue to avenue, street to street, in between alleyways and the like, but after several minutes of walking, Hopper stopped short.

A few soldiers behind her almost ran into her on account of the sudden stop, but one of the ferrets, after pausing for a moment, looked around and then asked, “Heyyy, uh...Hopper…? Somethin’ wrong?”

Hopper didn’t say anything. She only twitched her eyes and ears around for a minute, paused again, and then muttered, “...’S too quiet ‘ere, all’a sudden.”

As soon as the last word left her mouth, there was a bloodcurdling screech as dozens of Civilized soldiers jumped out of alleyways and off of three-story _buildings_ to get to the rabble that dared oppose them.

The only thing Hopper could bring to mind was, “Aw, hell.”

One of the first troops to rush in were the toads, who got as close as they could to the Commonfolk before detonating, turning more than a few of Hopper’s troops into chunky red paste. And as if that wasn’t enough, there were, again, troops now _behind_ them. Some had suffered broken legs from jumping off an apartment block building, but when faced with letting the common rabble run them out, it was of little consequence. As the bullets began to fly and the Commonfolk began to drop, Hopper called out, “Ev’ryone, scatter!”

Whoever heard her and didn’t die to the surprise attack broke rank and fled. Hopper herself ducked into the closest alleyway she could see and ran like mad. The alley was a maze of twists and turns, and she found herself running through a dingy back way, filled to the brim with broken crates, old tires, and other useless junk. When she broke back out, she saw other common rabble still scattering. “Go back ta da main square!” she yelled to them, “An’ tell ev’ryone else ya see what I told ya, too!”

The soldiers who heard her raised their fists in acknowledgement and kept running away from the ambush while Hopper herself took a different route. She weaved her way through the street and over more debris on the main roads, through a couple more back alleys, and out to a wide boulevard. As she ducked out of the side street, she swiveled her head around as fast as she could to check for any Civilized troops. And unfortunately, as she looked to the right, there was a sizeable detachment of snakes, lizards, pigeons, and falcons charging right toward her.

Hopper was no coward, but even _she_ could realize when she was outmatched, so she took off in the other direction and ran as fast as she could down the burning cobblestone street. The bullets started streaking by her; she could feel them ripple through the air as they just _barely_ missed her head. Of course, running down this street until she hit its end was the worst option possible, so she veered abruptly to her left and went right back to running through trash-strewn alleyways.

It took some maneuvering and a couple close calls where the machine gun fire from the falcons missed her, but eventually, she broke out of the back ways again, and was now on one of the main streets that led to a mostly circular plaza. It was bordered on all sides by offices and apartments, and one giant cathedral to the south. The square itself had specific height advantages; from the center to about fifteen feet out, everything was ground level. Sixteen feet and beyond was raised up as a kind of second walkway, connected to the ground floor by stairs. And as Hopper raced toward it, she could see other members of the Commonfolk bracing themselves up against sandbags and walls made of whatever junk they could get their hands on. Many of them cheered, of course, when they saw Hopper running at them. Such celebrations were short-lived.

From around the corner, a mass of yellow Nomads jumped out and began screeching, throwing spears down the street at Hopper. And with at least seventeen of them attacking, one of them was bound to hit something sooner or later.

There was a searing pain, the squelching sound of punctured flesh, and Hopper yelled as she fell to the pavement. She stayed there for a couple seconds before pushing herself over to see what had hit her. She winced when she saw the javelin that had impaled her right leg; the tip of the spear had punctured it and did so with enough force to cause a steady stream of blood to bubble to the surface and pour out like a grisly waterfall. While loping off her own arm had been excruciatingly painful, getting her nerves punctured a second time didn’t make anything easier or more bearable.

She tried not to scream any louder than she just did, but hearing the lizards shriek and chitter brought her out of her close examination of the wound, and through her watery vision, she could see them jumping up and down and racing toward her. Hopper blinked a couple times to get the tears out of her eyes and tried to get back up, but it was too much. She cried out again and fell on her side, choked, and looked back over at the encroaching Nomads. The Commonfolk started firing into the crowd to try and scare the lizards off, but it wouldn’t be enough to thin them out substantially in time to keep them from tearing Hopper apart.

Then, a single, high powered rifle shot echoed around the street and one of the lizards’ heads practically exploded. They all began yipping in panic, trying to find where the shot had come from. In that time, two more shots sounded out and subsequently killed two more lizards. The Nomads were having trouble with it, but Hopper could recognize the sound of that rifle anywhere. She glanced around and eventually caught a hint of extra color on top of the building next to her. Despite the burning pain still shooting up her leg, she cracked a smile when she saw Kasha was sitting on the roof, eyes trained down her scope and patiently reloading.

Kasha noticed Hopper was looking up at her, so she jerked her head to the side, indicating, “Get moving, I’ll cover you.” Hopper nodded and began slowly dragging herself toward the Commonfolk encampment, then after a couple feet, she forced herself to stand up and limp the rest of the way. Her soldiers didn’t really take to that very well, and several squirrels and lizards immediately rushed out to grab her and support her the rest of the way to safety.

When they had safely put her behind their front line, the Nomads immediately rushed up to her and crowded around, trying to find the best way to remove the javelin in her leg.

“We pull spear out quick, quick!” one of them chittered. “Dress hole in her leg quickly after!”

“No, no!” cried another, “Chop up spear into smaller parts, smaller! Take it out piece by piece!”

“Too slow, too slow! Commander Hopper will bleed out, bleed, bleed, bleed!”

Hopper, although still in copious amounts of pain, did chuckle. The Nomads did everything fast, as their circulation depended on it. It was then, Hopper noticed, that Kasha had gone down from the roofs and was now walking toward the crowd with her rifle slung over her shoulder. In the distance, there was gunfire ringing out, signifying the Civilized were now trying to bear down on the Commonfolk’s defenses harder than before.

She braced herself up on her arm and glanced back down at the wound. The spear was still lodged firmly in her shin, her skirt now gaining a deeper red saturation than before due to the bleeding. She took a labored breath in and out. “Outta all da times I tell da Matriark not ta call in any medics…” she huffed with a bitter smile.

“Hold still and let me see,” Kasha said as she approached them. The lizards immediately chirped “Stand back, stand back,” to each other as she bent down to look at the spear. She glanced at it, front and back, and then called over a small group of squirrels. They looked at each other with moderate confusion, but came nonetheless. Kasha held out her hand and stated, “I need a bottle of orn. The more of it’s left, the better.”

The Distillery Brothers all looked at each other for a moment before one of them asked, “I got one, but, erm...why?” as he held his up, the liquid reaching the base of the neck of the bottle. Kasha gave no answer, instead quickly snatching it out of his hands, which earned an indignant, “What the hell, I was gonna drink that!” from him.

“You might be thirsty, but if we don’t get this spear out of Hopper’s leg, we’ll have to amputate it, even if it doesn’t get infected,” Kasha refuted him. “I don’t think only having one arm will keep ya from leading an army effectively, not even missing both, but having only one leg would _severely_ stunt Hopper’s leadership role.”

Hopper scoffed. “Ya’d be surprised, Kasha. Maybe leave da thing in dere, see if yer right.”

Kasha glared at Hopper before looking back down at the spear and ripping some of her cloak up into a makeshift bandage. “This _will_ sting,” she warned.

“Do it, Kash- **aauuuggh!”**

With cold hearted determination, Kasha grabbed the shaft of the spear below the tip and pulled as hard as she could. There was another squelching sound as a fountain of blood jettisoned out of Hopper’s leg, but Kasha quickly pressed down on it and poured the orn. Hopper tried not to keep screaming, though at this point it would’ve been hard to hear over all the gunfire. After a couple seconds of agony, Kasha wrapped the wound up in the bandage and applied pressure to stem the bleeding. “Ya really do know how to throw yourself into the oven,” she said, looking up at Hopper.

Hopper only smiled back at her, though it was twisted some by the pain. “If I didn’t, ain’t nobody will...right?” She chuckled which turned into another pained gasp as Kasha pulled her bandage taut to keep the pressure up.

“That should keep ya from bleeding out,” Kasha instructed. “But you shouldn’t do any running for...two hours at the _least,_ or stand upright for longer than-”

She was cut off as Hopper immediately hoisted herself to her feet and stretched her leg, mostly to try and get used to the pain before running over to the western defensive wall, being manned by several squirrels, ferrets, and lizards. She peered between their heads to look out at the avenue, running red with blood from dozens, maybe hundreds of bodies of Civilized that had been gunned down before they could break the defensive line. And they didn’t seem to stop coming in, either. “...How many ya killed so far…?”

“Mirovan,” one of the ferrets said, “and honestly, Hopper? I couldn’t tell ya. It’s just been a nonstop tidal wave’a Civilized.” Mirovan launched a couple more shells into the crowd, blowing a couple of the lizards to bits. “At this point, I’d say we’d have to wear down their resolve...though we ain’t got enough ammo to last forever.”

The machine guns in the nests kept firing over the conversation, and as Hopper looked back out down the road, she saw the Civilized throwing themselves into the hail of merciless gunfire. Perhaps, in their “enlightened” status, they thought they were invincible; that the bullets would miss them and not everyone else because they didn’t believe enough. She grinned. Maybe they could hold Solawa yet.

“Hopper…!”

She turned around to face whoever had called her. There was a lizard posted at a road to the east, sandbagged and armed with another group of ferrets, lizards, and chameleons. “Yellow! Yellow, coming, yellow com-”

The lizard was cut off as a spear sailed through his head, into the temple and out the other side, and she saw, to her horror, a hail of snake spit fly out from behind the corner. It landed on several ferrets and a couple more lizards, who all started choking...except the one or two that took it straight to the eyes. They both screamed and began staggering around, swinging their arms wildly, blinded and maddened by pain. The screaming continued, and one was killed by another wayward spear, but the second died painfully, bashing his head on a wall to try and get the pain to cease. He slowly crumpled to the ground, and stopped moving.

By now, the rest of the Commonfolk had seen the carnage wrought and many of them ran from their original posts to reinforce the eastern entry, including Kasha. However, she never made it to the choke, as when she was halfway there, she noticed there were now toads pouring into the square. And when they went, they took everything with them.

The cacophony of explosions exterminated dozens of lizards, squirrels, and ferrets, as well as taking a few chameleons. Thankfully, Kasha was nowhere near the full extent of the blast radius’ power, but she was thrown backward, and landed unceremoniously on the ground, face first. Hopper could now see the tide of battle was turning. Now that the Civilized knew they were here and had prepared for it, the Commonfolk began to suffer. Seeing all her soldiers getting mowed down by guns and blown up by toads, she had to make a difficult decision; but with the speed the Civilized were bearing down on them, they had little chance of holding even a quarter of the city by now.

“Fall back, fall back!”

Every soldier who heard her turned at once to look at her, some in shock, some confused. “Get back ta da Warrens…!” Hopper yelled. “We jumpin’ ship! Get back ‘ome, get back ‘ome!” She started waving her flag around as she ran into a back alley, already pulling some scared nomads with her.

After pure chaos erupted as the remaining soldiers argued amongst themselves and some deserted in the panic, it only got worse. From the north side came a tide of snakes and lizards the likes of which the Commonfolk had never seen before. A massive wall of scales, teeth, and spears came charging in and easily surrounded and destroyed the static defenses that rabble had erected.

* * *

They had run through the Warrens as fast as possible, and it dumped the both of them and the meager remains of the army Hopper brought in in a tunnel somewhere in the old train network, which was good enough for her. She grabbed Kasha’s shoulder and hoisted her up as fast as she could with one arm. “C’mon, Kash, up an’ at’em!” she said as she half dragged her up and forward.

“Hopper, bless the Tsarina, I can _walk!”_ she hissed back.

They both staggered forward and ran down the tunnel, followed by the few squirrels, lizards, and chameleons that had managed to get away from the Civilized offensive. It was mostly dark, musty, and Hopper was fairly certain it was one of the places The Family would gather their fungus to sell off to the highest buyer. There wasn’t any time to debate that, of course, and the Commonfolk made a mad dash back to the west, safely under the cover of a couple miles of sand, granite, and the underground subways built well over a hundred years ago. They ran away fast, but Hopper remained content in the knowledge that they had at least escaped with their lives.

Soon enough, they saw a plaque on one of the walls at an abandoned maintenance station that read, “Stiteawn 202,” with an arrow pointing to the left, the same way Hopper and the mob behind her was heading. She grinned. “No mo’ worries, ev’ryone!” she called back. “We’re almost at Two-Oh-Two! No way da yellowcloaks’ll catch us in ‘ere-”

As she turned the corner back into Two Hundred Two, she stopped cold. From what she could see, there were cinders on the ground, blood spread across the stone floor, and a giant hole in the back wall of the station. The Commonfolk with her all collectively gasped in horror.

“...Bless da Tasrina…” she whispered.

They all quietly, carefully, crept forward and into the main station, and everything only seemed to get worse. There were bodies left behind; strewn about on the ground, slumped against the walls with bullet wounds in several places...even thrown into trash cans. That meant whoever raided the station didn’t need meat reserves, and it couldn’t have been the Civilized. When Hopper had taken it all in, she scowled and gritted her teeth. “Damn KSR **scum,”** she seethed.

Kasha strode up to her old friend and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Hopper…?” she asked cautiously. Kasha could still feel her vibrating, simmering with rage. “...It’ll be alright. There’s no way you could’ve known about this.”

“Ain’t make it hurt any less,” she spat, shaking her shoulder free of Kasha’s hand. She stared around at them bloody mess The KSR made. Station Two Oh Two had been, for lack of a better term, totaled. Windows were broken, walls had been knocked down, houses collapsed, everything that could be stolen most likely had been, by the looks of it.

There was a long, ponderous silence as Hopper and the remains of the Commonfolk tried to search the wreckage for anything valuable. As expected, they found little, if anything, that could justify searching for so long. Hopper herself went back to her old shanty, now in even greater disarray than before, and it broke her heart to see a couple dried pools of blood outside. The bodies must have been dragged off to The Larder after they got filled with lead. Inside wasn’t much better; tables overturned, walls partially broken down, and even some of her things in her room had been confiscated.

All except the tiny wooden statuette of Tsarina Nikolos. When Hopper saw it lying on the floor, she walked over, bent down, and slowly, reverently, picked it up. She looked it over for a moment, and wiped off some of the grease and dirt that had gotten on it. She looked regal, proud, and happy again. In some small way, Hopper found it comforting as she held it close to her heart. “I swear we’ll rebuild,” she whispered.

As she walked back outside, she heard the light tapping of wood next to her on the now-broken rooftops and walkways above the city. She scoffed, though it wasn’t so much out of humor as it was to cope. “Can still ‘ear ya, Krill.”

A chameleon materialized beside Hopper and walked in stride, holding his club over his shoulder. “Not doin’ too well, eh, Nubs?”

Hopper sighed. “Nope. If I gonna be honest wid ya, I’unno where we gotta take da Commonfolk now.”

“There’s always The Skirts,” the Krill said, shrugging.

Hopper slowed her pace a bit and began to think. The Skirts was on the outer edge of The Ends, and it put them further away from Scrapetown and Solawa...but it _did_ bring them closer to Old Mother Township...and farther away from Hagro and The KSR. Hopper couldn’t help but be at least _slightly_ intrigued by the prospect. Since it was also further southward, maybe she’d even get to meet Arroyo Bellafide sooner rather than later.

“Oi, Hopper!”

She stopped her train of thought and looked back at Krill, who was now several feet ahead of her. “You okay, there?”

Hopper smiled and walked back up to him and instructed, “Yep, just been thinkin.’ Go find da uddas, tell’em we goin’ on a trip.”

Krill knew exactly what she was implying and saluted with a tired grin. “You got it, Nubs,” he said before vanishing.


	9. Deep Cover

Papers spread across the table, some fallen to the floor, some stained by the liquor from the bottles of Three Harvests on the desk. The office remained dimly lit, and the only thing moving was the woman behind it, head in her hands, breathing heavily.

Outside, a ferret stood at the door, holding his fist up to the green-colored hardwood. He twitched nervously every couple seconds, and it felt like he had been standing there for eternity. Eventually, the ferret brought his hand back and knocked once, then thrice more in succession. He was only met with silence. After another minute of waiting, he opened his mouth to speak, but someone else beat him to it.

 _“What…?”_ came the Quartermaster’s voice behind the door.

“Uh...ma’am…? Can I, uh...come in…?”

There was another silence before he heard a sigh and a pained, “...Yes.” The Unioneer clutched the knob of the door cautiously, twisted, and pushed the door open into the Quartermaster’s office. He nearly froze solid when he saw her pick her head up off the desk and start moving around to recollect the papers scattered everywhere, but quickly recovered and approached her.

He had a couple seconds to rack his brains and try to come up with a good way to ask his question, as the Quartermaster tidied up the remaining mess. When she set the last of her papers down in a neat pile on her desk, she looked up at the ferret with the same stone-faced expression she was known for. “Vat do you vant, frieghter?”

The ferret cast a sideways glance to avoid her eyes, breathed in, and said, “I, eh...it’s...I’m...I’m guessin’ you ain’t takin’ the Tsarina’s death all too well…?”

The Quartermaster was dead silent and stared him down. She stared right into his eyes long enough for him to start visibly sweating and he began to shrink away from her. “No,” she stated flatly. “I am not.” She kept glaring at him for a couple minutes, drilling into his eyes, but eventually went back to sorting papers and writing notes on some. The ferret didn’t leave, however, instead remaining fixed in place. The Quartermaster only took notice after three minutes. **“...Vat?”**

The ferret, unready for his general’s demand, sputtered and went rigid before spitting out, “I...I heard that the Civilized managed to get a foothold in Solawa’s all, ma’am!”

The Quartermaster’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but she remained in her chair. “Interesting…” she muttered. While it wasn’t necessarily “good” news, it certainly left room for thought. She looked at the ferret from under her hat. “Ees that all, soldier?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Then get _out.”_

The ferret quickly saluted and scurried backward, nearly tripping over his legs trying to leave. He shut the door quickly, and left the Quartermaster to her thoughts. She inhaled, collected herself, and began filing papers. She would have done more of the paperwork, but as of now, its importance paled in comparison to finding who assassinated the Tsarina. And as fate would have it, she already had several candidates to hold up for interrogation.

She turned off the lights, left the office, and made down a hallway of the second floor of The Kitchens. The Kitchens itself was a six-story structure, two above ground, four below. The second level was a medical bay, the first level was reserved for intelligence gathering and reports, the two levels below were dedicated to barracks and recruitment, below that was the armory and weapon research, and the lowest level was the prison. The Quartermaster went to ground level after passing multiple hospital wards, housing recovering soldiers. Thank the Tsarina animals healed fast, provided they didn’t die in one shot.

She descended the stairs and walked straight ahead, rounded a couple corners, and entered a wooden double door, behind which she could hear the clacking of typewriters miles away. The room itself was around the size of a small conference room, filled with typewriters, printers, and copy machines. Ferrets, pigeons, and chameleons were running all over the room, carrying files and reports to different cabinets. The Quartermaster herself walked to a corkboard on the wall to the right and took four pins, went to another filing cabinet, and began rifling through it.

After a minute, she had three pictures, taken years apart, along with a couple extra reports. One of Archimedes, one of Bellafide, and one of Hopper. Hopper’s was blurry, and she wasn’t even the focal point of the picture, while Archimedes and Bellafide’s pictures were more like copies of portrait paintings. Either way, she brought them back to the corkboard and began pinning the pictures to the wall, along with a couple of the spy reports.

“I vill find out who assassinated you eef it _keels_ me,” she muttered.

* * *

The snow outside filtered down gently, which was a rarity this far up in Hagro. There was feather wire and mines set up around The Kitchens, as a perimeter to deter any Commonfolk or Longcoat spies. Said perimeter was patrolled mostly by Engineers, Distillery Brothers, and The AFB. Aside from that, both the jagged rocks that comprised the “backbone” of The Kitchens and and the few tree groves around the front provided a natural barrier, making The Kitchens one of the most well-defended locations in Vyeshal.

Security had taken priority over the last few weeks; The KSR knew that either the Commonfolk or the Longcoats would come after them at some point in the early days of the war. As such, there were patrols walking around the base, and there was a skunk posted on the west side, chugging Gray Orn. _“Augh…!”_ he spat after downing some. _“...Tyasts lyawek jyawk.”_

He swirled the liquid around in the bottle again before taking another swing and frowning. Orn wasn’t the best drink in the world, but it was what he’d been given for rations. In times like these, animals would take what they can get. He took another drink, but stopped immediately and nearly dropped the bottle when he heard rustling in the bushes next to him. He turned to the right and froze, looking into a darkened grove of trees, blanketed in white, everything beyond twenty feet ahead hidden in snow.

 _“Feeos shol?”_ he called. _“Chawa zalsolh…!”_ There was no answer save for the light wind. After a minute of dead silence, the skunk pulled his mask down over his head, readied his grenade launcher, and began walking, slowly, into the woods. He could have sworn he heard the rustling noise again, louder than before, but before he could turn to see, something jumped out from behind an evergreen, grappled the skunk around his neck, and with one hard twist there was a sickening _*SNAP*_ and the soldier fell dead.

Standing over his body was the violet of The Holy Order, and the stone gaze of Phyrros. The Spymaster knelt over the skunk’s body and checked his trenchcoat. It was full-body, and he had gloves, padded trousers, and army boots, as well as the gas mask and even a hood for the cold. Phyrros checked him over once, twice, thrice, nodded, and unsheathed the blade on his hand as he turned him over on his stomach.

“Your corpse vhill serve us vhell.”

* * *

He couldn’t tell what was going on in his peripheral vision, but he could at least look ahead, so Phyrros couldn’t complain...much. “This suit smells like a _toilet,”_ he muttered. He walked amongst the rooms and doors of the first floor. It was obvious this was where he needed to be; intel, battlefield reports, everything he would need to study and relay back to Instlandung. However, he had to “case the joint,” as it were. Learn and come to know each and every hallway, room, and air duct...just in case.

He descended the staircase to the first underground floor, and was greeted with a hallway of doors on both sides, numbered. _Barracks._

Phyrros marched forward, making mental notes of whatever he could; the state of the iron walls, the numbers on the doors, where the ventilation grates were located. He continued down the hallway, turned left at the fork, and kept walking in a straight line, past more corridors of barracks. Finally, the halls led him to a new room, covered in lino with a ceiling at least twenty feet up and long tables organized in rows along each wall. The center of the room had a shutter drawn over windows, and the door to the right made him note that this was the cafeteria.

 _“...yeng sawa, yo vwyawjev vwyawkeeng yevwya, vwesh_ vyawe _gleengk, vyaweng zee…”_

Phyrros heard the voices talking, over to the right, and turned his head. He saw a group of ferrets, squirrels, and moles huddled around one of said ferrets, who was sitting on a table with a drink in his hand, and apparently telling a story. The squirrels had their own bottles, many of them empty or nearly so, and a couple moles were leaning on their large, but still shoddy-looking wooden hammers. “Vhouldn’t be able to dent even _my_ armor,” he scoffed.

 _“...yeng yo taln yevwya hyawl vwyen sokyeng, nokst sheeng yo fool,_ **_PEEV!”_ **

The moles all jumped back and started laughing, while the force of the words the ferret used made the more drunken squirrels cry out and fall over backward. The ferret smirked and continued, _“...Lingvyawen dawazh yawh yengalev.”_ This earned some applause and shared laughs from the storyteller’s audience; Phyrros paid them no mind and continued walking, until he heard what must have been the storyteller call, _“Fyaoo, Velooyaw!”_

There was a pause, but Phyrros eventually assumed the ferret was speaking to him, so he turned. As he expected, the entire group was looking at him. _I’ll have to get zhat lexicon done as fast as I can,_ he thought.

 _“Soo onoo Kelvenhok yawl Longkawts owt too?”_ he asked, jumping off the table. He took a few steps toward him, then looked back at the group. _“Jawakov owt vwesh zal_ dis…?”

The entire group started laughing, but Phyrros remained where he was, staring at them all, trying to work out what kind of insult had been leveled at him. _“Yoo, vwyet fibyeng tee skoongks tyal?”_ a mole asked. _“Geg skoongk dot tee foongdloo yeng bal Fyawbal?”_ The group began laughing again as Phyrros tried to decode what they might be saying. He must have been staring at them longer than he thought, because they started casting sideways glances at each other, and the ferret’s cocky smirk faded and he quirked an eyebrow. _“Yeee...Velooyaw…? Zee awakya…?”_

Phyrros kept staring at them for another minute before muttering something through his gasmask before turning around and leaving to scout out the rest of the floor. He prayed the muffling effect would at least make them think his voice was being distorted, and as he made his way across the rest of the cafeteria, no one stopped him. He assumed it worked, though in the background he heard the soldiers talking amongst themselves.

 _“Sawa vwyetos fezhh...blyaw- *hic!* blyawplyev…?”_ one of the squirrels asked.

_“Onzyenel gyezh nyawt nawa. Vyapoo skoongk ezh hyawenyeloo tyawealg yem owal klib.”_

He ignored them and kept walking, out of the cafeteria and made for a stairway a few halls over. At least signs and symbols were universal.

Finally, after a couple hours of walking aimlessly around The Kitchens and nearly getting stopped and detained once, Phyrros returned to the first floor. He could hear the printers and typewriters working overtime from outside each room. He walked up and down the corridors, going off instinct of which room he should look into first. Eventually, he settled for a small office at the end of one hallway.

He rapped on the door quietly a couple times and after no answer, opened it. He looked around and nodded to himself. The room was dimly lit, only the light from the outside was filtering in at the moment, but he could see that, among the printers and file cabinets, there were radios. Not as complex as the ones The Holy Order possessed, but maybe…

Pulling up a chair at the nearest ham radio he saw, Phyrros fiddled around and eventually found the “on” switch. The radio flickered to life in a wave of static. He put on some nearby wired headphones, pulled the microphone over, and began turning the knob on the front of the radio while simultaneously tuning the antenna. At first all he got was more static. Then he heard talking, thought for all he knew, it could have just been battle reports filtering in. He knew which frequency The Holy Order used; it was just a matter of translating what he knew into a foreign device.

This dance continued for a few minutes, Phyrros picking up an airwave, getting static, and then getting something again. Every couple minutes, he would look back at the door and remain silent, just in case someone might be passing by, or suddenly walk in. After fifteen minutes of no success contacting Instlandung, he was about to lay it to rest and go search for some files, but then, suddenly, as he turned the knob ever so slightly, he heard the static filter out, and the background noise was almost silent. Save for some distant talking. In Gottstok.

“Yeah, did you hear zhe last episode of _‘Zhe Blues Collector?’_ God, I tshought for _sure_ zhat Franka vhould confess to Falko. I vhas…” He chuckled. “...A little more zhan disappointed.”

“Eh...I’m more of a _‘Doctor Street Murders’_ guy.”

Phyrros paid their idle conversation no mind and simply called out, “Come in, Instlandung post! I repeat, come in!”

He couldn’t hear very well, but the spitting and heavy thuds indicated the radio post hadn’t expected a call. He sighed and waited for them to get their act together. After a minute, he heard scraping metal and plastic over his headset and heard one of them men in the outpost stutter, “Wh-wh-who…? Who is zhis…?”

“Zhis is Spymaster Phyrros. Do you read me, men? Over.”

“Yes, I…” the radio operator paused. “...Vhe didn’t expect to hear from you, Spymaster. Vhat...vhat is your radio frequency, I don’t recognize it? Over,” he replied.

Phyrros looked back at the door and said, “Zhis radio frequency is owned by vhone of zhe four armies of savages. I vhill call zhem ‘Green’ until I can translate zheir name reliably. Over.”

He heard some muttering between the radio operators, some more scraping and stimulation of the headset fabric before the second man asked, “How did you get **in** zhere, sir? Over.”

“Snapped somevhone’s neck. Ugly looking bastard, all black fur vithz a vhite stripe down zhe back. It smelled like zhe men’s restroom after dinner, over.” He waited only a second and heard the two men on the other side snickering. “You’d better not laugh. I know for a _fact_ zhat zhat smell in zhere is _your_ fault...over.”

The snickering subsided and the operator continued, “Vhell, do you have a plan I can relay to zhe general?”

“Tell her I have blended vithz zhe enemy, und I vhill continue to use my disguise to learn as much as I can. I vhill return to Instlandung in two days at zhe earliest to drop off any files I can pilfer,” Phyrros replied.

“Sounds good, Spymaster. Over andt out?”

Phyrros removed his headset. “Over und out,” he said. He flicked the knob far to the left and cut the power, after which, returning the headphones and microphone to the places he first found them in. With that out of the way, he stood up, adjusted his gloves, and made for the door. Phyrros opened it cautiously, poked his head out, looked around, and quietly exited the room. No one was any the wiser.

He remained calm and confident as he strode around the corner, but was not prepared to see another member of this state-sec military so close to him. It made him tense up involuntarily as he swung around to see, what he thought was a rat, dressed in a black uniform and sporting green gloves, boots, a hat, and a cape over her right shoulder and arm.

What surprised him even more was that she must have noticed him flinch, as her eyes darted to look at him. _“Eh zyawl cheht ezh awamal, sawalzal, dawa pik tee fawalgeeng solzh yeng hityen yeb blezhyenalzh,”_ she said. Phyrros remained silent, but nodded, hoping that would get him a free pass.

Amazingly, this commanding officer, at least that what he assumed her to be, only said, _“Shon dawa,”_ and continued on her way. Phyrros assumed he was free to continue walking. He took a couple steps before the commanding officer, turned to watch him through squinted eyes. _“Sawalzal...vwyet fibyeng tee zyawl tyal…?”_

Phyrros stopped and turned around. He studied this woman, and noticed her eyes were being directed at some missing appendage, perhaps. And the word _“tyal”_ bore a striking resemblance to his word for “tail.” With that said, Phyrros simply shrugged and waited a moment before walking away and down the hall.

The Quartermaster, however, watched him go with a quirked eyebrow. Miryov _seemed_ well enough, but she couldn’t understand why in the whole wide world that skunk was taking the longest way possible back down to the prison cells.


	10. Strange Bedfellows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my profile said this fic was on the backburner, but since I like to disappoint people, the Tree blesses you with an update. Hoost vwol, vyo hyelonzh!

The sun had dipped far below the horizon hours ago, and now, only the stars would show their faces. The dockside was just as quiet as it had been the night Bellafide had crushed the Civilized soldiers hiding there. In the month between then and now, he had fortified it slightly, but that was mostly because he had elected to build some Gristmills there. If there was one thing the Swine were good at besides being delicious, it was farming out unused land.

He was currently overlooking a small patch of farms just beyond the perimeter, running calculations and statistics. “...Carry the nine...and...decline of our numbers plus our food stores…” He sighed. “We’re in the black, but...it’s not looking prosperous. At this rate...” He scratched his chin and went back to scribbling on his clipboard, and grimaced. “...We’ll go through our Swine faster than we can recuperate the losses in around five months.” Arroyo exhaled deeply and wiped his brow and muttered, “And that’s not taking into account the battles we’ll have to fight in short order. When that happens, we’ll need to recruit more soldiers and that will certainly…”

He trailed off, staring up at the sky for awhile. For a moment, he could see the possibility of failure written in them...but when he considered it, it only made him breathe in and harden his gaze. **“No,”** he stated, “I cannot fail now. The Longcoats are just getting started.” Arroyo kept his stoic gaze up and he marched down the road, in between the mills and farms.

The mills he had erected were few in number, and the ground the Swine were farming on probably wouldn’t last longer than three weeks at _best,_ but Arroyo knew it was all about taking what he could get when it was available. In time, the little victories would add up. As he passed a larger tract of farmland, about twenty-seven thousand square feet, and the Swine working it, he looked over and paused for a moment. Arroyo checked his clipboard and flipped a couple pages before he stopped on the designations of the Swine in the field.

After a moment reading the list, he called, “Swine...Five-Oh-Two!” In the fields, he saw the a few of the farmers look up and over at him. “Swine Five-Oh-Two...!”

Arroyo kept his eyes open and scanning the fields. Most of the Swine went back to farming, knowing their designation wasn’t five hundred two. He kept sweeping the yellow fields with his eyes until he noticed the outline of one of the pigs’ heads trudging toward him through the waves of grain. Eventually, the shorter-than-average Swine came up to the wooden fence, parting the grass and giving a small but polite bow to Arroyo; his gaze didn’t change. “Swine, I have a question for you. My reports inform me you are the informal head of this patch of Gristmills I have constructed, yes?” he asked.

“I am, ser,” the Swine replied smalley, “With an absence of an established leader–yourself notwithstanding, of course–I simply went about tending the fields as I do, but my kin insist I am fit to lead them.”

“I have been studying these figures…” Arroyo continued without missing a beat, “and I have reason to believe that some of you will not last much longer. That said, I wish to reorganize your numbers when some of you are eventually…” He trailed off. _“...Eaten,”_ he stated.

The Swine, unsurprisingly, did not react to the eventuality that he and/or his friends and family would be digesting in someone’s stomach. Instead, he paused and scratched his chin. “If you mean being efficient with reduced numbers, ser, you should find an ally.” The Swine continued, “I cannot claim to know the intricacies of diplomacy, but forging a bond with like-minded individuals would prove useful.”

Arroyo, for once, stopped to consider the Swine’s words. An ally _would_ prove useful, but the catch was, first, how would he compensate them for help? And two, where would he even find one in the first place? He walked away from the Swine, waving his hand dismissively, and the pig bowed once more and went back to tending the fields. “Hmm…” he muttered. “An ally...Perhaps the true question is, who would even be willing to help me?”

“I can think of one.”

Arroyo’s eyes widened and he spun around, simultaneously unholstering a vintage pistol he had elected to carry with him as the war dragged on. He knew he heard that voice coming from his left, in a Gristmill field that wasn’t yet being used for beast food, and yet, he saw nothing. “Who’s there?” he demanded. “Yellowcloak? KSR? Show yourself!”

After a minute, he saw the air a few feet in front of him bend as the light around it shifted, and took the shape of a hunchbacked chameleon with red scales, holding a large, spiked club. He grinned and took a step toward Arroyo, and commented, “Woah, there...Mister Bellafide’s paranoid enough to carry a gun now? Never thought I’d see the day.”

Arroyo’s gaze softened slightly, and he brought the pistol lower. Though, his lips curled into a frown. “And _what_ would a Commonfolk vagrant want with _me?”_ he asked.

The chameleon sighed and leaned on the hilt of his club. “Overheard you talkin’ back there. Figured I should let you know, our girl Hopper’s lookin’ for some help, too. Ever since we got chased out of Solawa, The KSR’ve been tryin’ to finish the job an’ rip us apart,” he explained coolly.

Arroyo scowled. “I see no reason to associate with the Commonfolk. Every last one of them is a rabble-rouser with no mind for politics _or_ strategy,” he chided.

The chameleon made a huffing sound bearing a pained grin. “Really? Listen, blue-boy,” he said, “with all that blood on your coat, it’s hard to tell you apart from one’a us.” Arroyo was about to cut the Trencher off and threaten to shoot him, inhaling to yell and all, before he continued, “Look, all I know is that Hopper said to come talk to you. Asked her, ‘What if he doesn’t listen to us? Doesn’t decide to help?’ Know what she tells me?” He picked up his club and slung it over his shoulder. “She tells me, ‘Then he and his mercs can choke on the tide of Commonfolk that’ll be breakin’ his doors down after we win this war.’”

There was a momentary pause as Bellafide crossed his arms and murmured to himself. He’d never heard of Hopper before tonight, but if she was leading an entire army of those who lived and suffered in the cities and on the farms before the famine, it was probably a bad move to _not_ ally with her.

At least until that alliance stopped proving useful.

“Then I shall take her up on her offer,” Arroyo conceded. “But don’t think I’m stupid. I’m a businessman; all things come in transactions. What does she want in exchange for my help?”

The chameleon smirked and began walking away, past Arroyo and up the roads, into the silent night. He was about to call after him, but the chameleon cut him off. “Hopper doesn’t want nothin’, big man, save for an end to th’ Civilized. Besides…” His body warped as the light refracted around his scales and he disappeared after uttering, “She wanted to talk to you herself. Go find her at the far southwest of Snikaree by tomorrow afternoon.”

And then, Arroyo was left to his own thoughts. He supposed, at first, that perhaps this wouldn’t be too terrible; after all, he said himself he needed an alliance in order to stop the Civilized, but in the back of his mind, he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that, perhaps, the Commonfolk might be a bit too...rambunctious.

He suddenly looked up, and his eyes darted around nervously. He could have sworn he just heard that chameleon say, “Look forward to workin’ with you,” when he was nowhere to be seen anymore.

* * *

Bellafide had never been to The Ends; after all, he never had reason to.

He had marched in front of his army for miles to the northeast, toward the foothills of Snikaree. The Warrens they erected ensured they were spared the brunt of the scorching sun, but as soon as they left the underground tunnels, Bellafide could feel his body heat spike. He looked up, and sure enough, the sun was beating down on them. He wiped his brow and looked around at the soldiers he’d brought with him; the squirrels and moles were already sweating, and a few of the ferrets went so far as to throw their shirts off and tie them around their waists by the sleeves.

At least there were a _few_ sparse trees to block the sunlight.

“H...hey, boss…?” one of the squirrels panted, “Where’s the bloody commoners already?”

“Hasch, we _just_ got out of the Warrens,” Arroyo replied.

“Yeah, but it’s hot, an’ all this fur ain’t doin’ me any favors.”

Arroyo scoffed. “How do you think _I_ feel?”

There were sparse complaints from the rest of the detachment Arroyo had taken with him, but they clammed up fairly quickly. After all, _he_ was the one deciding their payroll. The southwest of Snikaree was, again, fairly hot, bordering The Ends, but much of the cold winds from Hagro blew in to allay some of the heat further north; it also allowed conifers and other such trees to grow quite nicely. Bellafide and his troops marched inward, toward the steppes of Hagro, and thankfully for them, the sky got more cloudy, and the air cooled.

The Longcoats kept marching, northward, and in his heart, Bellafide hoped against all hope that this wasn’t some cruel trick of fate; the _one_ thing that was far beyond his control.

“Hey, boss,” a ferret whispered to him, snapping him out of his thoughts, “Look up there!”

Arroyo turned his gaze upward. The Longcoats now stood at the base of a large hill, covered and crisscrossed by pines. The top of said hill itself was covered in the trees, but just barely peeking over them, they could clearly see smoke rising up into the sky. “Someone’s starting a fire,” Arroyo muttered to himself. He scratched his chin and then instructed his soldiers, “Keep your weapons ready. It could be Civilized or KSR troops as easily as it could be Commonfolk.” His men took Arroyo at his word and they all slowly advanced up the hill.

The canopy of trees wasn’t all that thick, but the underbrush seemed to make far too much noise than what any of the Longcoats were comfortable with. Yet they pressed on, through the branches, slowing only once, when they heard noise coming from the top of the hill. Arroyo heard one of his soldiers whisper, “Sounds like a party up there.”

Either way, he and his men advanced up the hill, and upon cresting the top, they could see many of the trees that used to be there had been cut. Tents had been erected, all of them a shimmering crimson, despite their wear and tear, and the hastily-stitched patches covering up large holes. There was a bonfire in the center of this campsite, and crowded around it were dozens, if not hundreds, of lizards, chameleons, squirrels, and some mice thrown in for good measure, which Bellafide recognized as the Wretches, in service to The Family. He’d heard too many rumors about other aristocrats like him falling on the wrong side of a deal with them for it to be ignored, and he silently thanked the Tsarina he was lucky enough to have stayed out of that business.

However, Arroyo and his soldiers remained stationary at the edge of the forest, quietly standing around and hidden behind multiple layers of foliage, watching what the Commonfolk were doing. Bellafide was hesitant on moving in simply for the fact he wouldn’t know how the commoners might react. Sure, they had invited him, but who’s to say it wasn’t a trap? After a minute, however, he heard a chameleon closer to the edge of the woods call out, “Oi, Nubs! The boys in blue’re here!” He looked back to the Longcoats, still partially concealed in the trees, and gestured for them to come out. Admittedly, all of them were hesitant, until the chameleon added, “Don’t act so shy, eh? We saw ya comin’ up the hill.”

Arroyo’s mercenaries all stared at each other for a moment before leaving the confines of the forest, and entering the clearing. Arroyo himself looked around and took in more of this small campsite; there was nothing special, but it made it much clearer when he saw a young, and for that matter, _ragged_ looking doe in a red skirt and tied rag for a hat, as well as a gypsy’s cowl. She jumped down from a low hanging branch on a tree with a smirk on her face, and approached Arroyo directly and held out her left hand.

“So…” she began, “You must be dat ‘Bellafide’ guy I been hearin’ ‘bout.”

“...I am,” he replied. “You are…Hopper, I take it...?”

Hopper’s grin got even wider as she said, “One an’ only. Don’ wear it out.”

“Well-met, then.” Arroyo clutched the edges of his jacket and continued, “I am assuming you still want to discuss terms of an alliance?”

Hopper rolled her neck to crack it and replied, “If ya can ‘elp us beat da KSR inta da ground, mine army an’ me’ll follow ya wherever ya go.”

“Well, then,” Arroyo said as he gestured forward, “I believe we should agree on our terms first. After you.”

“One sec.” Hopper looked over Arroyo’s shoulder and called out, “Oi!” and her troops quickly looked over their shoulders back at her. “No fightin’ while me an’ Bellafide talk, eh?” The Commonfolk situated around the fire offered up a disinterested “Aye” and Hopper looked back at Arroyo. “A’right, bluey, after you.”

Bellafide paused for a moment to mutter “...This might have been a mistake,” under his breath before walking forward, and he and Hopper began to circle the edge of the forest, rounding the camp. “First of all…” he began, “How much will be shared between our two armies?”

“What, we talkin’...guns an’ da like?” Hopper replied.

Arroyo shot her a sideways glance, his glasses glinting as the sun peeked out from behind a cloud. “No. Not entirely. I mean _food,”_ he explained. “I need to know that I can rely on your help, should I accept your offer.”

Hopper waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, yeah, yeah, I get’cha.” She paused for a moment, sighed, and continued, “We can’t offer ya much in da way’a food, Bellafide. Da Commonfolk’s too po’. Meat wasn’t easy ta find den, even ‘arder ta find now.”

“And yet, you request my aid?” Arroyo interrogated. “That’s a bit of a bold move to make, and yet, you don’t strike me as particularly stupid, Hopper. Rash, perhaps, but not _stupid.”_

“Could’a said da same,” Hopper chuckled. She quickly dropped the grin on her face and added, as straight-faced as she could, “But honestly, Bellafide...we need meat. Mine people’re goin’ ‘ungry, an’ without food, dis revolution ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Hopper looked over at Bellafide and asked, “We both know dat failin’ our own ain’t gonna fly. ‘F ya spare us some extra food, we can send ya more firepower.”

Arroyo paused to consider her words, and while they were true enough, he still needed some extra convincing. “Firepower such as…?”

There was a silence...but suddenly Hopper laughed as if she’d seen the Quartermaster herself walk into a solid wall while distracted with reports. “Whatever ya want, Longcoat, da Commonfolk got!”

“...Mortars?” he asked.

“Yep!”

“Bullets?”

“We get our hands on plenty!

“Shrapnel and enough gunpowder for a landmine?”

Hopper paused and her grin faltered. “Didn’ da Tsarina, bless’er soul, outlaw sellin’ landmines a couple Harvests back?”

“Yes, but I am not discussing _buying_ a landmine. I am asking if there’s a possibility I can buy the _parts_ for one.”

Hopper paused a moment before a small but equally wry grin popped up on her face and she chuckled to herself. “Yer a shrewd’un, Longcoat,” she said.

“I prefer the terms ‘pragmatic,’ or ‘efficient,’” Arroyo huffed in response. He dusted the front of his jacket off and continued, “But either way, I believe I can accept this as an alliance.” He extended his hand and said, “Agreed?”

Hopper paused again before grinning at Bellafide and shaking. “Ya got a deal, Longcoat. Da Commonfolk look out fer dey own.”

Arroyo sighed somewhat contentedly, but before he could elaborate further, he and Hopper heard a lone lizard shouting at the top of his lungs, “Hopper! Hopper! Bad things coming, bad things! Bad things!” Hopper herself ran over to the nomad and was about to ask what was wrong before several artillery explosions went off a mile away from the camp. The lizard didn’t even bother to catch his breath before crying out, “KSR! KSR found us!”

Another volley of explosions rocked the trees and the hill they stood on, prompting the Commonfolk to scurry around and grab their weapons while the Longcoats quickly arranged themselves into formation. “‘Ey, Mister Fantastic!” Hopper called to Arroyo. The rat himself looked over his shoulder at her as she slid a rusty knife out of a sheath on her hip and grabbed a small coil of rope. “Got any ideas?”

It didn’t even take a minute before Arroyo shouted, “You meet them at their front and keep them still. The Longcoats will circle around the hill, and once you see us, push forward! We’ll kill them in a pincer move!”

“Sounds good ta me!”

* * *

“Keep firing!” Sergeant Volkov screamed over the roar of Drumfire cannons, “Root the Commonfolk scum out of there!” It was amazing, really, how such a shy bureaucrat could turn into a machine that could instill fearlessness and hate for the enemy into every soldier. “Force them out, cut off their limbs, and eat while we make them _watch!”_

The KSR forces continued loading and hammering the forest with artillery. They were all set up at the foot of the hill, never a good position to be in for any army, and had set up their cannons in a hurry. All intelligence pointed to a small detachment of the Commonfolk mob marching through Snikaree, and Hopper was with them. The KSR was determined to _end_ this revolt before it even had the chance to get off the ground.

“Get those rear batteries going, why isn’t our forward line marching in yet, is our line back to The Kitchens working?” Volkov barked over the hollow explosions of Drumfire artillery.

“Almost, sarge!” one of the squirrels working on a radio said, “Should get a signal back to HQ in another few seconds!”

“That’s ‘sir’ to you, not ‘sarge!’” Volkov roared, “Start fixing those other two problems!”

That command was never meant to gain any traction. Before anyone knew what was happening, hundreds of Commonfolk came charging out from in between the trees, screaming their lungs out. At the forefront was Hopper herself, waving her flag wildly. The mob clashed with their mortal enemies, and they wiped out the first real front line The KSR had with no trouble. The Trench Gang and the Nomads butchered them where they dug themselves in; Hopper herself had lashed a rusted knife to the butt of her flag, and was using it as a bayonet.

“Hit’em ‘ard an’ make it ‘urt!”

Their front line of chameleons kept strong, beating the defending squirrels and moles to a pulp, and pushed the front back. The equipment The KSR had brought in and set at the front line was quickly smashed to bits; this did nothing to deter them. After all, The KSR had the discipline of a standing army; a mob did not. “All remaining cannons…” Volkov bellowed, **“Fire!”**

There was excited hollering from the back, and the remaining Drumfire cannons all shot their payloads, arcing across the sky, until they hit the Commonfolk ranks. Across their line, Hopper could see chameleons and lizards promptly vaporized by the combustion and explosive force. The unlucky ones who weren’t in the immediate blast radius were given deep puncture wounds, and that was if the shrapnel didn’t cut off entire limbs first.

“Push!” Hopper heard Volkov’s voice across the field, and saw The KSR soldiers pick themselves up out of the few trenches they had dug for themselves, and they opened fire. She herself ducked down to avoid the hail of bullet fire. Some of her own mob were not so lucky, and she could hear bodies hitting the ground on all sides. “Advance, you worthless Swine!”

“Sir, yes, sir!” came the response.

Hopper peeked over the mound of dirt that served as the first line of defense for The KSR, and saw the squirrels, moles, ferrets, and skunks moving in. She gritted her teeth, and forced herself up, waving her flag. “Hold’ em...!” Her boldness sparked courage in the soldiers around her, and they rose up, took aim, and opened fire. The gunshots rang, and dozens of KSR soldiers cried out, breathlessly, and fell into the dirt; for each one that fell, ten more took their place. “Keep firin’...! Let’em have it!”

Volley after volley of bullets were launched, from each side, as The KSR advanced on the Commonfolk defensive line. The Commonfolk themselves were suffering grievous losses from AFB and Freight Union artillery. Hopper herself could feel the heat coming off each shell the ferrets launched, but she didn’t pay it much mind. She was too busy stabbing KSR soldiers to death to care, and it was fun. The squirrels were no challenge, Hopper could so much as breathe on them and they’d die, but the moles had more fight. When two of them charged up the hill toward her, swinging their hammers, she scowled and swing the blunt end of her flag to knock one aside.

She brought the pole back fast enough to block an overhead blow from the second mole. Despite being brawnier than her, and only having her left arm, she was holding him in place. “Commonfolk Revolution is good as dead!” he hissed.

Hopper sneered at him, and with a defiant yell, she twisted the pole of the flag around and threw the mole off-balance before stabbing him in the chest. The mole grunted and fell forward into the trench Hopper was fighting her way out of, and as that one fell, the other mole took his place. He swung from the right, and Hopper was too slow to block it. The hammer hit her in the side, she buckled, and the mole swung again. His hammer made contact, and Hopper felt herself falling for only a second before she felt the hardened ground under her. Prone and her head spinning, she could barely make out the mole’s silhouette against the vibrant blue sky; he was ready to jump. “You kill Svyato!” he called down, “Sehrij kill you...!”

Before Hopper even had time to react to the mole’s enraged yelling, she heard artillery being fired. More screaming. She had enough breathing room to try and shake the blurriness in her eyes away, just in time to see the mole glance to his right.

He was promptly shot several times in the chest and his body spasmed for a few seconds before he keeled over backward, trying to gurgle out his last words. Over the din of battle, she could hear shouting. It was Arroyo.

“Surrender now, KSR swine, and _maybe_ we won’t eat you!”

Hopper shook her head to clear it completely and pushed herself back up to her feet and scrambled over to the edge of the trench she was in as quickly as she could. As she peered over the edge, she could see it: The Longcoats were marching in from the west side of the battlefield, the artillery shells of the Freight Union hammering out the death knell of dozens of animals. In front marched the squirrels, the barrels of their guns hot from the constant trigger pulls. Hopper grinned. _“Hah…!_ No time fo’ layin’ ‘round no mo’!” She pulled herself out of the trench and hefting her flag up, screamed out, and all who had ears heard her, Arroyo the clearest of all. He glanced over at her, only a dozen feet or so away and adjusted his ascot. One of the squirrels by his side noticed.

“Uh, boss…? You okay?” he asked, taking sideways glances at Bellafide. “Lookin’ kinda pale there.”

Arroyo didn’t take his eyes off Hopper, and by now, the dozens of remaining Commonfolk that had rallied to her side. She held up her flag as high as possible and directed it toward the KSR. With a shout that almost simultaneously came from all the commoner’s lungs at once, they surged out, and started to fire madly into the mass of green in front of them. If they were lucky, The KSR soldiers were shot in the belly, neck, or head, sometimes all three. If not, they were grabbed, and mercilessly butchered by the Trench Gang, or anyone who could get to them. “I’m...fine,” Arroyo replied. “Mostly surprised. That Hopper girl certainly knows how bring animals together.”

The Commonfolk pushed forward, doing their best to encircle The KSR from the opposite direction to catch as many soldiers as they could in a true pincer move while the Longcoats kept hammering them with artillery and more bullets. Even with valiant sacrifices and a couple desperate maneuvers, the fight was still a two-versus-one. When both Hopper’s and Arroyo’s armies met on the battlefield, their combined arms created a wall of bullets; not even The KSR could stand up to it, and they had no choice to retreat. And of course, the winners began picking over the corpses, if they weren’t busy shooting retreating stragglers in the back and making a beeline for the fresh bodies like starved carrion-eaters. The two armies watched the now-setting sun peek its way through the trees, filtering down on the coalition, forged from the fires of war and the burning desire for a better tomorrow. The quiet of late afternoon was only broken by a solitary voice that cried out:

“I **like** dis alliance!”


	11. To Ascend Again

 

_ 34 H, Monat von Hentkette _

 

There was finally peace and quiet again, across the whole city and under Civilized rule, there was virtually no chance of unrest seizing control. Archimedes gazed out over the skyline of small, twinkling lights in the windows and the lamps on the streets. Night in The Ends were far more soothing on the body than the day, as to be expected.

He lifted his head up once more to look around, only now realizing how dark his room seemed. He sighed and stood himself up from the desk he had been using and made his way to a switch on the wall, and he turned it on. The lights burned the darkness away, and Archimedes went so far as to shield his eyes.  _ “Bah... _ I am growing too old,” he grumbled, walking back to his desk to sit back down. On this desk was nothing more than some paper, a couple ballpoint pens, and a picture of the Tsarina back in her prime. Archimedes sighed and refocused his mind, picking up a pen and beginning to scribble on the paper. “‘Great Sage...I am pleased to tell you that...we have an established foothold in Solawa…” He trailed off for a moment before huffing and crumpling the paper up before tossing it over his shoulder and starting again. “‘Esteemed Sage Marro,’” he muttered to himself, “‘I hope this letter...finds you in good health...and good graces. I am pleased to inform you...that we now have an established foothold...in Solawa. In due time...I shall contact...The KSR...and attempt to reach a peace accord...that will benefit both parties...Signed respectfully, High Missionary Arch-.’”

Archimedes was interrupted by a frequently-paced knock on his door, cutting him off mid-thought. He turned to face the disturbance, but quickly rose up and walked over. Upon opening said door, he was greeted with another minister in similar robes as himself, minus the shawl denoting Archimedes’ position. The rat bowed respectfully and cleared his throat before he said, “High Missionary...the clergy have prepared tonight’s feast. I do apologize for the wait, after all, getting some semblance of order back into a city as large as Solawa has not been easy, or quick.”

“Ah, yes,” Archimedes replied. “Think nothing of it. I do not feel all that hungry right now anyway.”

“High Missionary, you  _ must _ eat,” the minister implored. “Being out in the desert for so long may have stunted your appetite, but your body still needs its nutrition.”

“Oh, I know. I will eat lightly. I should not and cannot risk getting sick from overindulging anytime soon.” He paused and muttered under his breath, “Pity as it is.” Archimedes strode out of his room and the minister did the honors of shutting his door for him as they walked the halls of the central cathedral. As big and luxurious as the church in Levacaloo, it was not, but it had its own charms to it; mainly the sandstone with which most of it was built, and the stained-glass windows of the halls. Every animal who saw them said they seemed to be more lustrous than any others they had seen before. Perhaps it was something in the sand that made them.

The minister walked with him in silence for only a moment before commenting, “By the way, High Missionary, the gathered faithful were wondering if you would deliver one of your rousing soliloquies for the meal.”

He turned to face the minister and nodded. “But of course. The flocks always need tending, and words to steer them in the right direction.”

It was at about that time they came to a large door, inscribed with wings and stylized depictions of the Blight Savior. The minister glanced at Archimedes, then down to the old priest’s hands, and whispered, “...I can’t help but notice you don’t have a prepared speech. Are you sure you don’t want me to simply delay our feast while you cook something up?”

Archimedes shook his head and said, “The best sermons are delivered from the heart.”

The minister paused, but nodded and scampered away soon after. Archimedes pushed the door open with his shoulder to see the feasting hall. Lit by two magnificent chandeliers high overhead, the light dancing across the arched ceiling, and by dozens of sconces on the walls, he saw the congregation waiting patiently at the table. Fellow ministers, raccoons, donkeys, squirrels, snakes, and many others sat around the twelve-foot table in the main cathedral hall, and upon it, lay the feast. Broasted squirrel haunch, grilled lizard, and above all, Swine. Swine of every build and weight, cooked to sizzling perfection and lining the length of the table; these were but a few of the delicacies laid out for the hungry flock, and Archimedes quickly strode up to the tables’ head before his followers’ hunger overtook them completely.

“My children,” he began, “I am delighted...and humbled...to see so many of you at our feast.” He clasped his hands together, tenting his fingers, and continued, “You have suffered long and risked much to sit at this table, none among you chief than those who braved the searing desert with me.”

The Civilized at the table were, by now, gazing at Archimedes intently, their eyes tracking his every movement, and small smiles forming on their lips. Archimedes smiled to himself, too, for he knew his words could entice even the most unlearned savage to his side. It certainly wasn’t their hunger getting worse from being denied the chance to eat, of course. He also knew that his words could keep them from eating the preacher, and besides, he was old and bony. Nobody wanted to eat that, or at least, he kept that hope in the back of his mind. “But your time of recompense is here, and it waits on this table. I tell you, my children, soon we will not be troubled by the rampant violence seizing this land.”

His decree was met with a cry of “Yes!” from the far end of the table; Archimedes couldn’t see who it was, exactly. “The Longcoats will be lifted from their delusions, just in time for them to see us cast them into the ovens!” There was an outcry of support from across the table and after their enthusiasm died, he continued, “The filthy Commonfolk shall  _ choke _ on the very  _ mud _ they crawled out of, as we wade into them, untouched by their arrogance and hubris!” The cheering got louder, and now, spurred on by the support, Archimedes cried, “Even the mighty KSR will yield to our will, and we, the Civilized and The Civilized  _ alone, _ shall feast eternal...!”

The cheering came to its zenith, the sheer noise being generated threatened to shatter the stained-glass windows. “With these words, I consecrate this food. Let us partake in our Feast!” Archimedes proclaimed, and with a jubilant cry, the congregation fell upon the food laid before them. Starving paws grasped for every piece of meat within reach. Archimedes, however, took only two drumsticks from the Swine laid in front of him, ate and let the food settle for but a moment, and stood up to leave the table. He walked out the way he came, humming to himself. However, as he turned left to return to his quarters, he heard hurried footsteps behind him, and turned to see another priest jogging up to him. Archimedes smiled warmly and said, “Brother, why do you neglect your stomach? You realize the flock is starving, too? You should return to the feast...unless you are sick-”

“No, High Missionary, it’s not that, it’s just that...I think…” The minister scratched the back of his neck and continued, though hesitantly, “Perhaps you could have relayed the news better…”

For a moment, Archimedes was shocked. “Did you find something wrong in my speech? A moment of inflection that drifted too far? A word out of place?”

“No, High Missionary, I’m just…” the rat took a deep breath and continued, “I’m just wondering why you didn’t tell them we were running out of Swine.”

Archimedes continued to stare at the rat and he scowled. “...Probably because I was not made  _ aware _ of such a development until recently. And by recently, I mean  _ now,”  _ he spat. “When did we start running out of Swine?”

The rat sighed, “An unfortunate error. Brother Sekulos miscounted the stores that we had after the Commonfolk scum raided the city.”

There was a moment of silence before Archimedes sighed in exasperation and continued walking down the hall. The priest quickly jolted forward to follow him, and after another couple minutes, tentatively asked, “...High Missionary…? Do you...have an answer to this problem, or-”

Archimedes held up his hand. “Hush, brother. In due time.” He kept going before repeating under his breath, “In due time, we will ascend again.”

* * *

Instlandung was quiet today. The only sound to be heard came from the village square, where everyone was gathered. Everyone. Not a soul remained in their homes. Instead, every last member of The Holy Order knelt on the dusty ground, by the hundreds, and the non-military members of the town joined them. At the forefront was a platform with a simple wooden table, covered in silk, and upon it rested a basin of water, three platters of smoked fish, one plate of light, fluffy bread, and four golden chalices, filled with wine.

“Oh, merciful God…” A man in white and lavender cloth dipped his hands into the basin and proceeded to dry them on a towel. “Grant zhat we, thine mourning children, weep no more.”

“Give us zhe peace of calm skies,” came the response.

The priest reached out, and picked up one platter of fish, hoisting it up to the sky. “You have given us zhese gifts of fish andt nourishing bread, made by your divine hands andt given freely to us, vhithzout need for recompense. Grant your humble servants vhorthy enough to eat and drink.”

“For God does not abandon his children,” chanted the masses in reply.

_ “Gottheildecheit rettenkulpf unsort,” _ the priest extolled.

_ “Unde rettenkulpf unsort vonnen Hälsreich,” _ the congregation replied. The priest then called two aides, dressed in dark grey cloaks, to take pieces of fish and deliver them to everyone in the congregation, a process that, in and of itself, took almost ten minutes, and then allowing everyone to drink from the chalices elongated the service. All members of The Holy Order received, and ate. In the back row knelt General Radegunde and Spymaster Phyrros next to her, patiently waiting. When one of the aides came back to them, they had both a slice of fish meat, and a slice of bread.

Phyrros looked up. The aide was young, not even a full man; barely any hair growing on his chin. Phyrros received the bread and the fish, and passed the bread piece to Radegunde. She thanked him, quietly, and ate it while he ate his fish. Not even one hundred-fifty years ago, having an allergy of the holy food of God was grounds for execution, and even today earned sullen looks across the aisle of the church. But Radegunde was  _ respected, _ which at least deflected some of the suspicion.

Once everyone had eaten, the pastor gazed up at the sky, and held out his hands as if holding the hands of two other people, one at each side, and everyone else stood up. “Zhe service is ended. Go, holding God’s peace and goodwill in your hearts.”

“Andt with your soul as well.”

From silence, there came song. They sang these words, repeatedly, as the pastor walked down the central aisle with his aides:

 

_ “Let us build zhe city of God! May our tears be turned into dancing! _

_ For zhe Lord, our light and our life, has turned zhe night into day!” _

 

As they praised, and after the priest had left the congregation, both Radegunde and Phyrros quietly left, and made back for their house by the docks. They made sure to leave most of the gathered behind before they talked freely.

“Vhat is our next move, general?” Phyrros asked.

“Zhat depends entirely on your progress with the savages’ language,” Radegunde replied. “Is it still going as smoothly as vhen I left you?”

Phyrros shrugged. “Give or take. I’d say, erm...two months earlier zhan expected.”

The estimate managed to cause Radegunde’s eyes to widen. A generous estimate, even by  _ his _ standards. And those were some  _ damn _ high standards. “Vhell, zhen...I suppose vhe vhill have to begin gathering more intelligence on a different faction,” Radegunde mused.

“My thoughts exactly,” Phyrros responded. “Say zhe vhord, und I vhill disappear.”

Radegunde only kept walking for another moment, thinking about their options, and after a minute, she turned to Phyrros and said, “Perhaps whoever you stole zhose first documents from…?” Phyrros nodded, after a pause, and Radegunde continued, “Excellent. You vhill make your vhay south-by southeast andt-”

**“Sachso...!”**

Radegunde and Phyrros immediately halted when they heard the sound of cloven hooves hammering the cobbled path ahead of them. Looking down the avenue, they saw a large, tan-brown bull charging at breakneck speed, and far behind him, a haggard-looking farmer in a mud-smeared smock with small pieces of hay stuck to it, holding a leash and running after his bull as fast as he could.  **“Sachso…!”** he cried again. Once he saw the two people walking along the street, however, he changed his tone.  **“My general…! Herr Spymaster…! Get out of zhe vhay! Something spooked him, he’s on zhe vharpath…! Run! Run, if you value your lives…!”**

Without so much as another word, Radegunde did the exact  _ opposite _ of what the herder asked, and walked forward a couple steps. Phyrros, surprisingly, did nothing save for jump to the right and take careful aim with his poison-dart launcher. As the bull charged closer, now within thirty feet, Radegunde held out her left hand, palm forward. The bull came charging.

Closer.

Closer.

Phyrros tightened his muscles, and the both of them barely registered the horrified screams of the farmer in the background.

When the bull was within ten feet of Radegunde, however, he reared up on her hind legs and roared before crashing back down on the road, his muzzle right on top of Radegunde’s hand. She stroked the bull’s snout, and very swiftly, the bull’s heavy breathing returned to a steady, lighter pace. Radegunde kept petting him, and stared her right in the eyes. There was no malice or anger to be found there anymore.

Phyrros quickly relaxed his stance and walked over to the general, and the farmer came running up to them all, after pausing a moment to register what he’d seen. “You...you did it!” the herder exclaimed, looking from his bull to the leaders of the Holy Order. “I...I...I don’t know vhat to say...except, perhaps, I should invest in stronger ropes.” He trailed off with a small chuckle.

Radegunde only smiled at him. “Zhat vhould be vhise.” She helped the herder tie the leash around the bull’s neck once more, and bid him, “Go in peace,” as he led his livestock back to the stables near the docks. “Now...back to zhe previous subject,” she said.

“But of course,” Phyrros replied. “I vhill go by your orders and take vhatever intel I can.”

Radegunde nodded and pointed down; Phyrros knelt. She raised her right hand and gestured in a counterclockwise circle. “God watch over you and bring you safely home.” Phyrros bowed his head lower than where it had been and quickly rose before turning and running toward the armorer to acquire the darts and tools he’d need for his mission.


End file.
